(NOTE: The electronic text obtained from The Electronic Bible Society was
not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all discovered errors.)
ST. AUGUSTIN
OF THE MORALS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH and OF THE MORALS OF THE MANICHAEANS
[Translated by the Rev. Richard Stothert, Bombay.]
OF THE MORALS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH [1] [DE MORIBUS ECCLESIAE CATHOLICAE.]
IT IS LAID DOWN AT THE OUTSET THAT THE CUSTOMS OF THE HOLY LIFE OF THE
CHURCH SHOULD BE REFERRED TO THE CHIEF GOOD OF MAN, THAT IS, GOD. WE MUST
SEEK AFTER GOD WITH SUPREME AFFECTION; AND THIS DOCTRINE IS SUPPORTED IN
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BY THE AUTHORITY OF BOTH TESTAMENTS. THE FOUR VIRTUES
GET THEIR NAMES FROM DIFFERENT FORMS OF THIS LOVE. THEN FOLLOW THE DUTIES
OF LOVE TO OUR NEIGHBOR. IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH WE FIND EXAMPLES OF
CONTINENCE AND OF TRUE CHRISTIAN CONDUCT.
CHAP. I.--HOW THE PRETENSIONS OF THE MANICHAEANS ARE TO BE REFUTED. TWO
MANICHAEAN FALSEHOODS.
1. ENOUGH, probably, has been done in our other books [2] in the way of
answering the ignorant and profane attacks which the Manichaeans make on
the law, which is called the Old Testament, in a spirit of vainglorious
boasting, and with the approval of the uninstructed. Here, too, I may
shortly touch upon the subject. For every one with average intelligence can
easily see that the explanation of the Scriptures should be sought for from
those who are the professed teachers of the Scriptures; and that it may
happen, and indeed always happens, that many things seem absurd to the
ignorant, which, when they are explained by the learned, appear all the
more excellent, and are received in the explanation with the greater
pleasure on account of the obstructions which made it difficult to reach
the meaning. This commonly happens as regards the holy books of the Old
Testament, if only the man who meets with difficulties applies to a pious
teacher, and not to a profane critic, and if he begins his inquiries from a
desire to find truth, and not in rash opposition. And should the inquirer
meet with some, whether bishops or presbyters, or any officials or millers
of the Catholic Church, who either avoid in all cases opening up mysteries,
or, content with simple faith, have no desire for more recondite knowledge,
he must not despair of finding the knowledge of the truth in a case where
neither are all able to teach to whom the inquiry is addressed, nor are all
inquirers worthy of learning the truth. Diligence and piety are both
necessary: on the one hand, we must have knowledge to find truth, and, on
the other hand, we must deserve to get the knowledge.
2. But as the Manichaeans have two tricks for catching the unwary, so
as to make them take them as teachers,--one, that of finding fault with the
Scriptures, which they either misunderstand or wish to be misunderstood,
the other, that of making a show of chastity and of notable abstinence,--
this book shall contain our doctrine of life and morals according to
Catholic teaching, and will perhaps make it appear how easy it is to
pretend to virtue, and how difficult to possess virtue. I will refrain, if
I can, from attacking their weak points, which I know well, with the
violence with which they attack what they know nothing of; for I wish them,
if possible, to be cured rather than conquered. And I will quote such
testimonies from the Scriptures as they are bound to believe, for they
shall be from the New Testament; and even from this I will take none of the
passages which the Manichaeans when hard pressed are accustomed to call
spurious, but passages which they are obliged to acknowledge and approve.
And for every testimony from apostolic teaching I will bring a similar
statement from the Old Testament, that if they ever become willing to wake
up from their persistent dreams, and to rise towards the light of Christian
faith, they may discover both how far from being Christian is the life
which they profess, and how truly Christian is the Scripture which they
cavil at.
CHAP. 2.--HE BEGINS WITH ARGUMENTS, IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE MISTAKEN METHOD
OF THE MANICHAEANS.
3. Where, then, shall I begin? With authority, or with reasoning? In
the order of nature, when we learn anything, authority precedes reasoning.
For a reason may seem weak, when, after it is given, it requires authority
to confirm it. But because the minds of men are obscured by familiarity
with darkness, which covers them in the night of sins and evil habits, and
cannot perceive in a way suitable to the clearness and purity of reason,
there is most wholesome provision for bringing the dazzled eye into the
light of truth under the congenial shade of authority. But since we have to
do with people who are perverse in all their thoughts and words and
actions, and who insist on nothing more than on beginning with argument, I
will, as a concession to them, take what I think a wrong method in
discussion. For I like to imitate, as far as I can, the gentleness of my
Lord Jesus Christ, who took on Himself the evil of death itself, wishing to
free us from it.
CHAP. 3.--HAPPINESS IS IN THE ENJOYMENT OF MAN'S CHIEF GOOD. TWO CONDITIONS
OF THE CHIEF GOOD: 1ST, NOTHING IS BETTER THAN IT; 2D, IT CANNOT BE LOST
AGAINST THE WILL.
4. How then, according to reason, ought man to live? We all certainly
desire to live happily; and there is no human being but assents to this
statement almost before it is made. But the title happy cannot, in my
opinion, belong either to him who has not what he loves, whatever it may
be, or to him who has what he loves if it is hurtful or to him who does not
love what he has, although it is good in perfection. For one who seeks what
he cannot obtain suffers torture, and one who has got what is not desirable
is cheated, and one who does not seek for what is worth seeking for is
diseased. Now in all these cases the mind cannot but be unhappy, and
happiness and unhappiness cannot reside at the same time in one man; so in
none of these cases can the man be happy. I find, then, a fourth case,
where the happy life exists,--when that which is man's chief good is both
loved and possessed. For what do we call enjoyment but having at hand the
objects of love? And no one can be happy who does not enjoy what is man's
chief good, nor is there any one who enjoys this who is not happy. We must
then have at hand our chief good, if we think of living happily.
5. We must now inquire what is maws chief good, which of course cannot
be anything inferior to man himself. For whoever follows after what is
inferior to himself, becomes himself inferior. But every man is bound to
follow what is best. Wherefore man's chief good is not inferior to man. Is
it then something similar to man himself? It must be so, if there is
nothing above man which he is capable of enjoying. But if we find something
which is both superior to man, and can be possessed by the man who loves
it, who can doubt that in seeking for happiness man should endeavor to
reach that which is more excellent than the being who makes the endeavor.
For if happiness consists in the enjoyment of a good than which there is
nothing better, which we call the chief good, how can a man be properly
called happy who has not yet attained to his chief good? or how can that be
the chief good beyond which something better remains for us to arrive at?
Such, then, being the chief good, it must be something which cannot be lost
against the will. For no one can feel confident regarding a good which he
knows can be taken from him, although he wishes to keep and cherish it. But
if a man feels no confidence regarding the good which he enjoys, how can he
be happy while in such fear of losing it ?
CHAP. 4.--MAN--WHAT ?
6. Let us then see what is better than man. This must necessarily be
hard to find, unless we first ask and examine what man is. I am not now
called upon to give a definition of man. The question here seems to me to
be,--since almost all agree, or at least, which is enough, those I have now
to do with are of the same opinion with me, that we are made up of soul and
body,--What is man? Is he both of these? or is he the body only, or the
soul only? For although the things are two, soul and body, and although
neither without the other could be called man (for the body would not be
man without the soul, nor again would the soul be man if there were not a
body animated by it), still it is possible that one of these may be held to
be man, and may be called so. What then do we call man? Is he soul and
body, as in a double harness, or like a centaur? Or do we mean the body
only, as being in the service of the soul which rules it, as the word lamp
denotes not the light and the case together, but only the case yet it is on
account of the light that it is so called? Or do we mean only the mind, and
that on account of the body which it rules, as horseman means not the man
and the horse, but the man only, and that as employed in ruling the horse?
This dispute is not easy to settle; or, if the proof is plain, the
statement requires time. This is an expenditure of time and strength which
we need not incur. For whether the name man belongs to both, or only to the
soul, the chief good of man is not the chief good of the body; but what is
the chief good either of both soul and body, or of the soul only, that is
man's chief good.
CHAP. 5.--MAN'S CHIEF GOOD IS NOT THE CHIEF GOOD OF THE BODY ONLY, BUT THE
CHIEF GOOD OF THE SOUL.
7. Now if we ask what is the chief good of the body, reason obliges us
to admit that it is that by means of which the body comes to be in its best
state. But of all the things which invigorate the body, there is nothing
better or greater than the soul. The chief good of the body, then, is not
bodily pleasure, not absence of pain, not strength, not beauty, not
swiftness, or whatever else is usually reckoned among the goods of the
body, but simply the soul. For all the things mentioned the soul supplies
to the body by its presence, and, what is above them all, life. Hence I
conclude that the soul is not the chief good of man, whether we give the
name of man to soul and body together, or to the soul alone. For as
according to reason, the chief good of the body is that which is better
than the body, and from which the body receives vigor and life, so whether
the soul itself is man, or soul and body both, we must discover whether
there is anything which goes before the soul itself, in following which the
soul comes to the perfection of good of which it is capable in its own
kind. If such a thing can be found, all uncertainty must be at an end, and
we must pronounce this to be really and truly the chief good of man.
8. If, again, the body is man, it must be admitted that the soul is the
chief good of man. But clearly, when we treat of morals,--when we inquire
what manner of life must be held in order to obtain happiness,--it is not
the body to which the precepts are addressed, it is not bodily discipline
which we discuss. In short, the observance of good customs belongs to that
part of us which inquires and learns,, which are the prerogatives of the
soul; so, when we speak of attaining to virtue, the question does not
regard the body. But if it follows, as it does, that the body which is
ruled over by a soul possessed of virtue is ruled both better and more
honorably, and is in its greatest perfection in consequence of the
perfection of the soul which rightfully governs it, that which gives
perfection to the soul will be man's chief good, though we call the body
man. For if my coachman, in obedience to me, feeds and drives the horses he
has charge of in the most satisfactory manner, himself enjoying the more of
my bounty in proportion to his good conduct, can any one deny that the good
condition of the horses, as well as that of the coachman, is due to me? So
the question seems to me to be not, whether soul and body is man, or the
soul only, or the body only, but what gives perfection to the soul; for
when this is obtained, a man cannot but be either perfect, or at least much
better than n the absence of this one thing.
CHAP. 6.--VIRTUE GIVES PERFECTION TO THE SOUL; THE SOUL OBTAINS VIRTUE BY
FOLLOWING GOD; FOLLOWING GOD IS THE HAPPY LIFE.
9. No one will question that virtue gives perfection to the soul. But
it is a very proper subject of inquiry whether this virtue can exist by
itself or only in the soul. Here again arises a profound discussion,
needing lengthy treatment; but perhaps my summary will serve the purpose.
God will, I trust, assist me, so that, notwithstanding our feebleness, we
may give instruction on these great matters briefly as well as
intelligibly. In either case, whether virtue can exist by itself without
the soul, or can exist only in the soul, undoubtedly in the pursuit of
virtue the soul follows after something, and this must be either the soul
itself, or virtue, or something else. But if the soul follows after itself
in the pursuit of virtue, it follows after a foolish thing; for before
obtaining virtue it is foolish Now the height of a follower's desire is to
reach that which he follows after. So the soul must either not wish to
reach what it follows after, which is utterly absurd and unreasonable, or,
in following after itself while foolish, it reaches the folly which it Bees
from. But if it follows after virtue in the desire to reach it, how can it
follow what does not exist? or how can it desire to reach what it already
possesses? Either, therefore, virtue exists beyond the soul, or if we are
not allowed to give the name of virtue except to the habit and disposition
of the wise soul, which can exist only in the soul, we must allow that the
soul follows after something rise in order that virtue may be produced in
itself; for neither by following after nothing, nor by following after
folly, can the soul, according to my reasoning, attain to wisdom.
10. This something else then, by following after which the soul becomes
possessed of virtue and wisdom, is either a wise man or God. But we have
said already that it must be something that we cannot lose against our
will. No one can think it necessary to ask whether a wise man, supposing we
are content to follow after him, can be taken from us in spite of our
unwillingness or our persistence. God then remains, in following after whom
we live well, and in reaching whom we live both well and happily. If any
deny God's existence, why should I consider the method of dealing with
them, when it is doubtful whether they ought to be dealt with at all? At
any rate, it would require a different starting-point, a different plan, a
different investigation from what we are now engaged in. I am now
addressing those who do not deny the existence of God, and who, moreover,
allow that human affairs are not disregarded by Him. For there is no one, I
suppose, who makes any profession of religion but will hold that divine
Providence cares at least for our souls.
CHAP. 7.--THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD TO BE OBTAINED FROM THE SCRIPTURE. THE PLAN
AND PRINCIPAL MYSTERIES OF THE DIVINE SCHEME OF REDEMPTION.
11. But how can we follow after Him whom we do not see? or how can we
see Him, we who are not only men, but also men of weak understanding? For
though God is seen not with the eyes but with the mind, where can such a
mind be found as shall, while obscured by foolishness, succeed or even
attempt to drink in that light? We must therefore have recourse to the
instructions of those whom we have reason to think wise. Thus far argument
brings us. For in human things reasoning is employed, not as of greater
certainty, but as easier from use. But when we come to divine things, this
faculty turns away; it cannot behold; it pants, and gasps, and burns with
desire; it falls back from the light of truth, and turns again to its
wonted obscurity, not from choice, but from exhaustion. What a dreadful
catastrophe is this, that the soul should be reduced to greater
helplessness when it is seeking rest from its toil! So, when we are hasting
to retire into darkness, it will be well that by the appointment of
adorable Wisdom we should be met by the friendly shade of authority, and
should be attracted by the wonderful character of its contents, and by the
utterances of its pages, which, like shadows, typify and attemper the
truth.
12. What more could have been done for our salvation? What can be more
gracious and bountiful than divine providence, which, when man had fallen
from its laws, and, in not wholly abandon him? For in this most righteous
government, whose ways are strange and inscrutable, there is, by means of
unknown connections established in the creatures sub jeer to it, both a
severity of punishment and a mercifulness of salvation. How beautiful this
is, how great, how worthy of God, in fine, how true, which is all we are
seeking for, we shall never be able to perceive, unless, beginning with
things human and at hand, and holding by the faith and the precepts of true
religion, we continue without turning from it in the way which God has
secured for us by the separation of the patriarchs, by the bond of the law,
by the foresight of the prophets, by the witness of the apostles, by the
blood of the martyrs, and by the subjugation of the Gentiles. From this
point, then, let no one ask me for my opinion, but let us rather hear the
oracles, and submit our weak inferences to the announcements of Heaven.[1]
CHAP. 8.--GOD IS THE CHIEF GOOD, WHOM WE ARE TO SEEK AFTER WITH SUPREME
AFFECTION.
13. Let us see how the Lord Himself in the gospel has taught us to
live; how, too, Paul the apostle,--for the Manichaeans dare not reject
these Scriptures. Let us hear, O Christ, what chief end Thou dost prescribe
to us; and that is evidently the chief end after which we are told to
strive with supreme affection. "Thou shalt love," He says, "the Lord thy
God." Tell me also, I pray Thee, what must be the measure of love; for I
fear lest the desire enkindled in my heart should either exceed or come
short in fervor. "With all thy heart," He says. Nor is that enough. "With
all thy soul." Nor is it enough yet. "With all thy mind."[1] What do you
wish more? I might, perhaps, wish more if I could see the possibility of
more. What does Paul say on this? "We know," he says, "that all things
issue in good to them that love God." Let him, too, say what is the measure
of love. "Who then," he says, "shall separate us from the love of Christ?
shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or
peril, or the sword?"[2] We have heard, then, what and how much we must
love; this we must strive after, and to this we must refer all our plans.
The perfection of all our good things and our perfect good is God. We must
neither come short of this nor go beyond it: the one is dangerous, the
other impossible.
CHAP. 9.--HARMONY OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT ON THE PRECEPTS OF
CHARITY.[3]
14. Come now, let us examine, or rather let us take notice,--for it is
obvious and can be seen, at once,--whether the authority of the Old
Testament too agrees with those statements taken from the gospel and the
apostle. What need to speak of the first statement, when it is clear to all
that it is a quotation from the law given by Moses? For it is there
written, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind."[4] And not to go farther for a
passage of the Old Testament to compare with that of the apostle, he has
himself added one. For after saying that no tribulation, no distress, no
persecution, no pressure of bodily want, no peril, no sword, separates us
from the love of Christ, he immediately adds, "As it is written, For Thy
sake we are in suffering all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for
the slaughter."[5] The Manichaeans are in the habit of saying that this is
an interpolation,--so unable are they to reply, that they are forced in
their extremity to say of this. But every one can see that this is all a
that is left for men to say when it is proved that they are wrong.
15. And yet I ask them if they deny that this is said in the Old
Testament, or if they hold that the passage in the Old Testament does not
agree with that of the apostle. For the first, the books will prove it; and
as for the second, those prevaricators who fly off at a tangent will be
brought to agree with me, if they will only reflect a little and consider
what is said, or else I will press upon them the opinion of those who judge
impartially. For what could agree more harmoniously than these passages?
For tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, cause
great suffering to man while in this life. So all these words are implied
in the single quotation from the law, where it is said," For Thy sake we
are in suffering."[6] The only other thing is the sword, which does not
inflict a painful life, but removes whatever life it meets with. Answering
to this are the words, "We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." And
love could not have been more plainly expressed than by the words,, "For
Thy sake." Suppose, then, that this testimony is not found in the Apostle
Paul, but is quoted by me, must you not prove, you heretic, either that
this is not written in the old law, or that it does not harmonize with the
apostle? And if you dare not say either of these things (for you are shut
up by the reading of the manuscript, which will show that it is written,
and by common sense, which sees that nothing could agree better with what
is said by the apostle), why do you imagine that there is any force in
accusing the Scriptures of being corrupted? And once more, what will you
reply to a man who says to you, This is what I understand, this is my view,
this is my belief, and I read these books only because I see that
everything in them agrees with the Christian faith? Or tell me at once if
you will venture deliberately to tell me to the face that we are not to
believe that the apostles and martyrs are spoken of as having endured great
sufferings for Christ's sake, and as having been accounted by their
persecutors as sheep for the slaughter? If you cannot say this, why should
you bring a charge against the book in which I find what you acknowledge I
ought to believe ?
CHAP. 10.--WHAT THE CHURCH TEACHES ABOUT GOD. THE TWO GODS OF THE
MANICHAEANS.
16. Will you say that you grant that we are bound to love God, but not
the God worshipped by those who acknowledge the authority of the Old
Testament? In that case you refuse to worship the God who made heaven and
earth, for this is the God set forth all through these books. And you admit
that the whole of the world, which is called heaven and earth, had God and
a good God good and the other bad.
But if you say that you worship and approve of worshipping the God who
made heaven and earth, but not the God supported by the authority of the
Old Testament, you act impertinently in trying, though vainly, to attribute
to us views and opinions altogether unlike the wholesome and profitable
doctrine we really hold. Nor can your silly and profane discourses be at
all compared with the expositions in which learned and pious men of the
Catholic Church open up those Scriptures to the willing and worthy. Our
understanding of the law and the prophets is quite different from what you
suppose. Mistake us no longer. We do not worship a God who repents, or is
envious, or needy, or cruel, or who takes pleasure in the blood of men or
beasts, or is pleased with guilt and crime, or whose possession of the
earth is limited to a little corner of it. These and such like are the
silly notions you are in the habit of denouncing at great length. Your
denunciation does not touch us. The fancies of old women or of children you
attack with a vehemence that is only ridiculous. Any one whom you persuade
in this way to join you shows no fault in the teaching of the Church, but
only proves his own ignorance of it.
17. If, then, you have any human feeling,--if you have any regard for
your own welfare,--you should rather examine with diligence and piety the
meaning of these passages of Scripture. You should examine, unhappy beings
that you are; for we condemn with no less severity and copiousness any
faith which attributes to God what is unbecoming Him, and in those by whom
these passages are literally understood we correct the mistake of
ignorance, and look upon persistence in it as absurd. And in many other
things which you cannot understand there is in the Catholic teaching a
check on the belief of those who have got beyond mental childishness, not
in years, but in knowledge and understanding--old in the progress towards
wisdom. For we learn the folly of believing that God is bounded by any
amount of space, even though infinite; and it is held unlawful to think of
God, or any part of Him, as moving from one place to another. And should
any one suppose that anything in God's substance or nature can suffer
change or conversion, he will be held guilty of wild profanity. There are
thus among us children who think of God as having a human form, which they
suppose He really has, which is a most degrading idea; and there are many
of full age to whose mind the majesty of God appears in its inviolableness
and unchangeableness as not only above the hum. a body, but above their
own mind itself. These ages, as we said, are distinguished not by time, but
by virtue and discretion. Among you, again, there is no one who will
picture God in a human form; but neither is there one who sets God apart
from the contamination of human error. As regards those who are fed like
crying babies at the breast of the Catholic Church, if they are not carried
off by heretics, they are nourished according to the vigor and capacity of
each, and arrive at last, one in one way and another in another, first to a
perfect man, and then to the maturity and hoary hairs of wisdom, when they
may get life as they desire, and life in perfect happiness.
CHAP. II.--GOD IS THE ONE OBJECT OF LOVE; THEREFORE HE IS MAN'S CHIEF GOOD.
NOTHING IS BETTER THAN GOD. GOD CANNOT BE LOST AGAINST OUR WILL.
18. Following after God is the desire of happiness; to reach God is
happiness itself. We follow after God by loving Him; we reach Him, not by
becoming entirely what He is, but in nearness to Him, and in wonderful and
immaterial contact with Him, and in being inwardly illuminated and occupied
by His truth and holiness. He is light itself; we get enlightenment from
Him. The greatest commandment, therefore, which leads to happy life, and
the first, is this: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and soul, and mind." For to those who love the Lord all things issue in
good. Hence Paul adds shortly after, "I am persuaded that neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor virtue, nor things present, nor things future,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (1) If, then, to
those who love God all things issue in good, and if, as no one doubts, the
chief or perfect good is not only to be loved, but to be loved so that
nothing shall be loved better, as is expressed in the words, "With all thy
soul, with all thy heart, and with all thy mind," who, I ask, will not at
once conclude, when these things are all settled and most surely believed,
that our chief good which we must hasten to arrive at in preference to all
other things is nothing else than God? And then, if nothing can separate
us, from His love, must not this be surer as well as better than any other
good?
19. But let us consider the points separately. No one separates us from
this by threatening death. For that with which we love God cannot die,
except in not loving God; for death is not to love God, and that is when we
prefer anything to Him in affection and pursuit. No one separates us from
this in promising life; for no one separates us from the fountain in
promising water. Angels do not separate us; for the mind cleaving to God is
not inferior in strength to an angel. Virtue does not separate us; for if
what is here called virtue is that which has power in this world, the mind
cleaving to God is far above the whole world. Or if this virtue is perfect
rectitude of our mind itself, this in the case of another will favor our
union with God, and in ourselves will itself unite us with God. Present
troubles do not separate us; for we feel their burden less the closer we
ring to Him from whom they try to separate us. The promise of future things
does not separate us; for both future good of every kind is surest in the
promise of God, and nothing is better than God Himself, who undoubtedly is
already present to those who truly cleave to Him. Height and depth do not
separate us; for if the height and depth of knowledge are what is meant, I
will rather not be inquisitive than be separated from God; nor can any
instruction by which error is removed separate me from Him, by separation
from whom it is that any one is in error. Or if what is meant are the
higher and lower parts of this world, how can the promise of heaven
separate me from Him who made heaven? Or who from beneath can frighten me
into forsaking God, when I should not have known of things beneath but by
forsaking Him? In fine, what place can remove me from His love, when He
could not be all in every place unless He were contained in none?
CHAP. 12.--WE ARE UNITED TO GOD BY LOVE, IN SUBJECTION TO HIM.
20. "No other creature," he says, separates us. O man of profound
mysteries! He thought it not enough to say, no creature: but he says no
other creature; teaching that with which we love God and by which we cleave
to God, our mind, namely, and understanding, is itself a creature. Thus the
body is another creature; and if the mind is an object of intellectual
perception, and is known only by this means, the other creature is all that
is an object of sense, which as it were makes itself known through the
eyes, or ears, or smell, or taste, or touch, and this must be inferior to
what is perceived by the intellect alone. Now, as God also can be known by
the worthy, only intellectually,[2] exalted though He is above the
intelligent mind as being its Creator and Author, there was danger lest the
human mind, from being reckoned among invisible and immaterial things,
should be thought to be of the same nature with Him who created it, and so
should fall away by pride from Him to whom it should be united by love. For
the mind becomes like God, to the extent vouchsafed by its subjection of
itself to Him for information and enlightenment. And if it obtains the
greatest nearness by that subjection which produces likeness, it must be
far removed from Him by that presumption which would make the likeness
greater. It is this presumption which leads the mind to refuse obedience to
the laws of God, in the desire to be sovereign, as God is.
21. The farther, then, the mind departs from God, not in space, but in
affection and lust after things brow Him, the more it is filled with folly
and wretchedness. So by love it returns to God,--a love which places it not
along with God, but under Him. And the more ardor and eagerness there is in
this, the happier and more elevated will the mind be, and with God as sole
governor it will be in perfect liberty. Hence it must know that it is a
creature. It must believe what is the truth,--that its Creator remains ever
possessed of the inviolable and immutable nature of truth and wisdom, and
must confess, even in view of the errors from which it desires deliverance,
that it is liable to folly and falsehood. But then again, it must take care
that it be not separated by the love of the other creature, that is, of
this visible world, from the love of God Himself, which sanctifies it in
order to lasting happiness. No other creature, then,--for we are ourselves
a creature,--separates us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
CHAP. 13.--WE ARE JOINED INSEPARABLY TO GOD BY CHRIST AND HIS SPIRIT.
22. Let this same Paul tell us who is this Christ Jesus our Lord. "To
them that are called," he says, "we preach Christ the virtue of God, and
the wisdom of God." (1) And does not Christ Himself say, "I am the truth?"
If, then, we ask what it is to live well,--that is, to strive after
happiness by living well,--it must assuredly be to love virtue, to love
wisdom, to love truth, and to love with all the heart, with all the soul,
and with all the mind; virtue which is inviolable and immutable, wisdom
which never gives place to folly, truth which knows no change or variation
from its uniform character. Through this the Father Himself is seen; for it
is said, "No man cometh unto the Father but by me." To this we cleave by
sanctification. For when sanctified we burn with full and perfect love,
which is the only security for our not turning away from God, and for our
being conformed to Him rather than to this world; for "He has predestinated
us," says the same apostle, "that we should be conformed to the image of
His Son." (3)
23. It is through love, then, that we become conformed to God; and by
this conformation, and configuration, and circumcision from this world we
are not confounded with the things which are properly subject to us. And
this is done by the Holy Spirit. "For hope," he says, "does not confound
us; for the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
which is given unto us." (4) But we could not possibly be restored to
perfection by the Holy Spirit, unless He Himself continued always perfect
and immutable. And this plainly could not be unless He were of the nature
and of the very substance of God, who alone is always possessed of
immutability and invariableness. "The creature," it is affirmed, not by me
but by Paul, "has been made subject to vanity.'' (5) And what is subject to
vanity is unable to separate us from vanity, and to unite us to the truth.
But the Holy Spirit does this for us. He is therefore no creature. For
whatever is, must be either God or the creature.
CHAP. 14.--WE CLEAVE TO THE TRINITY, OUR CHIEF GOOD, BY LOVE.
24. We ought then to love God, the Trinity in unity, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit; for this must be said to be God Himself, for it is said of
God, truly and in the most exalted sense," Of whom are all things, by whom
are all things, in whom are all things." Those are Paul's words. And what
does he add? "To Him be glory." (6) All this is exactly true. He does not
say, To them; for God is one. And what is meant by, To Him be glory, but to
Him be chief and perfect and widespread praise? For as the praise improves
and extends, so the love and affection increases in fervor. And when this
is the case, mankind cannot but advance with sure and firm step to a life
of perfection and bliss. This, I suppose, is all we wish to find when we
speak of the chief good of man, to which all must be referred in life and
conduct. For the good plainly exists; and we have shown by reasoning, as
far as we were able, and by the divine authority which goes beyond our
reasoning, that it is nothing else but God Himself. For how can any thing
be man's chief good but that in cleaving to which he is blessed? Now this
is nothing but God, to whom we can cleave only by affection, desire, and
love.
CHAP. 15.--THE CHRISTIAN DEFINITION OF THE FOUR VIRTUES.
25. As to virtue leading us to a happy life, I hold virtue to be
nothing else than perfect love of God. For the fourfold division of virtue
I regard as taken from four forms of love. For these four virtues (would
that all felt their influence in their minds as they have their names in
their mouths !), I should have no hesitation in defining them: that
temperance is love giving itself entirely to that which is loved; fortitude
is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved object;
justice is love serving only the loved object, and therefore ruling
rightly; prudence is love distinguishing with sagacity between what hinders
it and what helps it. The object of this love is not anything, but only
God, the chief good, the highest wisdom, the perfect harmony. So we may
express the definition thus: that temperance is love keeping itself entire
and incorrupt for God; fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the
sake of God; justice is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well
all else, as subject to man; prudence is love making a right distinction
between what helps it towards God and what might hinder it. (7)
CHAP. 16.--HARMONY OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
26. I will briefly set forth the manner of life according to these
virtues, one by one, after I have brought forward, as I promised, passages
from the Old Testament parallel to those I have been quoting from the New
Testament. For is Paul alone in saying that we should be joined to God so
that there should be nothing between to separate us? Does not the prophet
say the same most aptly and concisely in the words, "It is good for me to
cleave to God?" (1) Does not this one word cleave express all that the
apostle says at length about love? And do not the words, It is good, point
to the apostle's statement, "All things issue in good to them that love
God?" Thus in one clause and in two words the prophet sets forth the power
and the fruit of love.
27. And as the apostle says that the Son of God is the virtue of God
and the wisdom of God,--virtue being understood to refer to action, and
wisdom to teaching (as in the gospel these two things are expressed in the
words, "All things were made by Him," which belongs to action and virtue;
and then, referring to teaching and the knowledge of the truth, he says,
"The life was the light of men" (2),--could anything agree better with
these passages than what is said in the Old Testament (3) of wisdom, "She
reaches from end to end in strength, and orders all things sweetly?" For
reaching in strength expresses virtue, while ordering sweetly expresses
skill and method. But if this seems obscure, see what follows: "And of
all," he says, "God loved her; for she teaches the knowledge of God, and
chooses His works." Nothing more is found here about action; for choosing
works is not the same as working, so this refers to teaching. There remains
action to correspond with the virtue, to complete the truth we wish to
prove. Read then what comes next: "But if," he says, "the possession which
is desired in life is honorable, what is more honorable than wisdom, which
works all things?" Could anything be brought forward more striking or more
distinct than this, or even more fully expressed? Or, if you wish more,
hear another passage of the same meaning. "Wisdom," he says, "teaches
sobriety, and justice, and virtue." (4) Sobriety refers, I think, to the
knowledge of, the truth, or to teaching; justice and virtue to work and
action. And I know nothing comparable to these two things, that is, to
efficiency in action and sobriety in contemplation, which the virtue of God
and the wisdom of God, that is, the Son of God, gives to them that love
Him, when the same prophet goes on to show their value; for it is thus
stated: "Wisdom teaches sobriety, and justice, and virtue, than which
nothing is more useful in life to man.'' (5)
28. Perhaps some may think that those passages do not refer to the Son
of God. What, then, is taught in the following words: "She displays the
nobility of her birth, having her dwelling with God? " (6) To what does
birth refer but to parentage? And does not dwelling with the Father claim
and assert equality? Again, as Paul says that the Son of God is the wisdom
of God, (7) and as the Lord Himself says, "No man knoweth the Father save
the only-begotten Son,'' (8) what could be more concordant than those words
of the prophet: "With Thee is wisdom which knows Thy works, which was
present at the time of Thy making the world, and knew what would be
pleasing in Thine eyes?" (9) And as Christ is called the truth, which is
also taught by His being called the brightness of the Father (10) (for
there is nothing round about the sun but its brightness which is produced
from it), what is there in the Old Testament more plainly and obviously in
accordance with this than the words, "Thy truth is round about Thee?" (11)
Once more, Wisdom herself says in the gospel, "No man cometh unto the
Father but by me;" (12) and the prophet says, " Who knoweth Thy mind,
unless Thou givest wisdom?" and a little after, "The things pleasing to
Thee men have learned, and have been healed by wisdom." (13)
29. Paul says, "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the
Holy Spirit which is given unto us;'' (14) and the prophet says, "The Holy
Spirit of knowledge will shun guile." (15) For where there is guile there
is no love. Paul says that we are "conformed to the image of the Son of God
;" (16) and the prophet says, "The light of Thy countenance is stamped upon
us.'' (1) Paul teaches that the Holy Spirit is God, and therefore is no
creature; and the prophet says, "Thou sendest Thy Spirit from the higher."
(2) For God alone is the highest, than whom nothing is higher. Paul shows
that the Trinity is one God, when he says, "To Him be glory;"[3] and in the
Old Testament it is said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God."
(4)
CHAP. 17.--APPEAL TO THE MANICHAEANS, CALLING ON THEM TO REPENT.
30. What more do you wish? Why do you resist ignorantly and
obstinately? Why do you pervert untutored minds by your mischievous
teaching? The God of both Testaments is one. For as there is an agreement
in the passages quoted from both, so is there in all the rest, if you are
willing to consider them carefully and impartially. But because many
expressions are undignified, and so far adapted to minds creeping on the
earth, that they may rise by human things to divine, (5) while many are
figurative, that the inquiring mind. may have the more profit from the
exertion of finding their meaning, and the more delight when it is found,
you pervert this admirable arrangement of the Holy Spirit for the purpose
of deceiving and ensnaring your followers. As to the reason why divine
Providence permits you to do this, and as to the truth of the apostle's
saying, "There must needs be many heresies, that they which are approved
may be made manifest among you," (6) it would take long to discuss these
things, and you, with whom we have now to do, are not capable of
understanding them. I know you well. To the consideration of divine things,
which are far higher than you suppose, you bring minds quite gross and
sickly, from being fed with material images.
31. We must therefore in your case try not to make you understand
divine things, which is impossible, but to make you desire to understand.
This is the work of the pure and guileless love of God, which is seen
chiefly in the conduct, and of which we have already said much. This love,
inspired by the Holy Spirit, leads to the Son, that is, to the wisdom of
God, by which the Father Himself is known. For if wisdom and truth are not
sought for with the whole strength of the mind, it cannot possibly be
found. But when it is sought as it deserves to be, it cannot withdraw or
hide itself from its lovers. Hence its words, which you too are in the
habit of repeating, "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you:" (7) "Nothing is hid which shall
not be revealed." (8) It is love that asks, love that seeks, love that
knocks, love that reveals, love, too, that gives continuance in what is
revealed. From this love of wisdom, and this studious inquiry, we are not
debarred by the Old Testament, as you always say most falsely, but are
exhorted to this with the greatest urgency.
32. Hear, then, at length, and consider, I pray you, what is said by
the prophet: "Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away; yea, she is easily
seen of them that love her, and found of such as seek her. She preventeth
them that desire her, in making herself first known unto them. Whoso
seeketh her early shall have no great travail; for he shall find her
sitting at his doors. To think, therefore, upon her is perfection of
wisdom; and whoso watcheth for her shall quickly be without care. For she
goeth about seeking such as are worthy of her, showeth herself favorably
unto them in the ways, and meeteth them in every thought. For the very true
beginning of her is the desire of discipline; and the care of discipline is
love; and love is the keeping of her laws; and the giving heed unto her
laws is the assurance of incorruption; and incorruption maketh us near unto
God. Therefore the desire of wisdom bringeth to a kingdom.'' (9) Will you
still continue in dogged hostility to these things? Do not things thus
stated, though not yet understood, make it evident to every one that they
contain something deep and unutterable? Would that you could understand the
things here said! Forthwith you would abjure all your silly legends and
your unmeaning material imaginations, and with great alacrity, sincere
love, and full assurance of faith, would betake yourselves bodily to the
shelter of the most holy bosom of the Catholic Church.
CHAP. 18.--ONLY IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS PERFECT TRUTH ESTABLISHED ON THE
HARMONY OF BOTH TESTAMENTS.
33. I could, according to the little ability I have, take up the points
separately, and could expound and prove the truths I have learned, which
are generally more excellent and lofty than words can express; but this
cannot be done while you bark at it. For not in vain is it said, "Give not
that which is holy to dogs." (1) Do not be angry. I too barked and was a
dog; and then, as was right, instead of the food of teaching, I got the rod
of correction. But were there in you that love of which we are speaking, or
should it ever be in you as much as the greatness of the truth to be known
requires, may God vouchsafe to show you that neither is there among the
Manichaeans the Christian faith which leads to the summit of wisdom and
truth, the attainment of which is the true happy life, nor is it anywhere
but in the Catholic teaching. Is not this what the Apostle Paul appears to
desire when he says, "For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
that He would grant unto you, according to the riches of His glory, to be
strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man: that Christ may
dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the height, and length,
and breadth, and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth
knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God?" (2) Could
anything be more plainly expressed?
34. Wake up a little, I beseech you, and see the harmony of both
Testaments, making it quite plain and certain what should be the manner of
life in our conduct, and to what all things should be referred. To the love
of God we are incited by the gospel, when it is said, "Ask, seek,
knock;"(3) by Paul, when he says, "That ye, being rooted and grounded in
love, may be able to comprehend;" (4) by the prophet also, when he says
that wisdom can easily be known by those who love it, seek for it, desire
it, watch for it, think about it, care for it. The salvation of the mind
(5) and the way of happiness is pointed out by the concord of both
Scriptures; and yet you choose rather to bark at these things than to obey
them. I will tell you in one word what I think. Do you listen to the
learned men of the Catholic Church with as peaceable a disposition, and
with the same zeal, that I had when for nine years I attended on you: (6)
there will be no need of so long a time as that during which you made a
fool of me. In a much, a very much, shorter time you will see the
difference between truth and vanity.
CHAP. 19.--DESCRIPTION OF THE DUTIES OF TEMPERANCE, ACCORDING TO THE SACRED
SCRIPTURES.
35. It is now time to return to the four virtues, and to draw out and
prescribe a way of life in conformity with them, taking each separately.
First, then, let us consider temperance, which promises us a kind of
integrity and incorruption in the love by which we are united to God. The
office of temperance is in restraining and quieting the passions which make
us pant for those things which turn us away from the laws of God and from
the enjoyment of His goodness, that is, in a word, from the happy life. For
there is the abode of truth; and in enjoying its contemplation, and in
cleaving closely to it, we are assuredly happy; but departing from this,
men become entangled in great errors and sorrows. For, as the apostle says,
"The root of all evils is covetousness; which some having followed, have
made shipwreck of the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many
sorrows.'' (7) And this sin of the soul is quite plainly, to those rightly
understanding, set forth in the Old Testament in the transgression of Adam
in Paradise. Thus, as the apostle says, "In Adam we all die, and in Christ
we shah all rise again." (8) Oh, the depth of these mysteries! But I
refrain; for I am now engaged not in teaching you the truth, but in making
you unlearn your errors, if I can, that is, if God aid my purpose regarding
you.
36. Paul then says that covetousness is the root of all evils; and by
covetousness the old law also intimates that the first man fell. Paul tells
us to put off the old man and put on the new. (9) By the old man he means
Adam who sinned, ant by the new man him whom the Son of God took to Himself
in consecration for our redemption. For he says in another place, "The
first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly.
As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the
heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the
image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly," (10)--
that is, put off the old man, and put on the new. The whole duty of
temperance, then, is to put off the old man, and to be renewed in God,--
that is, to scorn all bodily delights, and the popular applause, and to
turn the whole love to things divine and unseen. Hence that following
passage which is so admirable: "Though our outward man perish, our inward
man is renewed day by day." (1) Hear, too, the prophet singing, "Create in
me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." (2) What can
be said against such harmony except by blind barkers?
CHAP. 20.--WE ARE REQUIRED TO DESPISE ALL SENSIBLE THINGS, AND TO LOVE GOD
ALONE.
37. Bodily delights have their source in all those things with which
the bodily sense comes in contact, and which are by some called the objects
of sense; and among these the noblest is light, in the common meaning of
the word, because among our senses also, which the mind uses in acting
through the body, there is nothing more valuable than the eyes, and so in
the Holy Scriptures all the objects of sense are spoken of as visible
things. Thus in the New Testament we are warned against the love of these
things in the following words: "While we look not at the things which are
seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen
are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."[3] This shows
how far from being Christians those are who hold that the sun and moon are
to be not only loved but worshipped. For what is seen if the sun and moon
are not? But we are forbidden to regard things which are seen. The man,
therefore, who wishes to offer that incorrupt love to God must not love
these things too. This subject I will inquire into more particularly
elsewhere. Here my plan is to write not of faith, but of the life by which
we become worthy of knowing what we believe. God then alone is to be loved;
and all this world, that is, all sensible things, are to be despised,--
while, however, they are to be used as this life requires.
CHAP. 21.--POPULAR RENOWN AND INQUISITIVENESS ARE CONDEMNED IN THE SACRED
SCRIPTURES.
38. Popular renown is thus slighted and scorned in the New Testament:
"If I wished," says St. Paul, "to please men, I should not be the servant
of Christ" (4) Again, there is another production of the soul formed by
imaginations derived from material things, and called the knowledge of
things. In reference to this we are fitly warned against inquisitiveness to
correct which is the great function of temperance. Thus it is said, "Take
heed lest any one seduce you by philosophy." And because the word
philosophy originally means the love and pursuit of wisdom, a thing of
great value and to be sought with the whole mind, the apostles, with great
prudence, that he might not be thought to deter from the love of wisdom,
has added the words, "And the elements of this world." (5) For some people,
neglecting virtues, and ignorant of what God is, and of the majesty of
nature which remains always the same, think that they are engaged in an
important business when searching with the greatest inquisitiveness and
eagerness into this material mass which we call the world. This begets so
much pride, that they look upon themselves as inhabitants of the heaven of
which they often discourse. The soul, then, which purposes to keep itself
chaste for God must refrain from the desire of vain knowledge like this.
For this desire usually produces delusion, so that the soul thinks that
nothing exists but what is material; or if, from regard to authority, it
confesses that there is an immaterial existence, it can think of it only
under material images, and has no belief regarding it but that imposed by
the bodily sense. We may apply to this the precept about fleeing from
idolatry.
39. To this New Testament authority, requiring us not to love anything
in this world,[6] especially in that passage where it is said, "Be not
conformed to this world," (7)--for the point is to show that a man is
conformed to whatever he loves,--to this authority, then, if I seek for a
parallel passage in the Old Testament, I find several; but there is one
book of Solomon, called Ecclesiastes, which at great length brings all
earthly things into utter contempt. The book begins thus: "Vanity of the
vain, saith the Preacher, vanity of the vain; all is vanity. What profit
hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?'' (8) If all
these words are considered, weighed, and thoroughly examined, many things
are found of essential importance to those who seek to flee from the world
and to take shelter in God; but this requires time and our discourse
hastens on to other topics. But, after this beginning, he goes on to show
in detail that the vain (9) are those who are deceived by things of this
sort; and he calls this which deceives them vanity,--not that God did not
create those things, but because men choose to subject themselves by their
sins to those things, which the divine law has made subject to them in
well-doing. For when you consider things beneath yourself to be admirable
and desirable, what is this but to be cheated and misled by unreal goods?
The man, then, who is temperate in such mortal and transient things has his
rule of life confirmed by both Testaments, that he should love none of
these things, nor think them desirable for their own sakes, but should use
them as far as is required for the purposes and duties of life, with the
moderation of an employer instead of the ardor of a lover These remarks on
temperance are few in proportion to the greatness of the theme, but perhaps
too many in view of the task on hand.
CHAP. 22.--FORTITUDE COMES FROM THE LOVE OF GOD.
40. On fortitude we must be brief. The love, then, of which we speak,
which ought with all sanctity to burn in desire for God, is called
temperance, in not seeking for earthly things, and fortitude in bearing the
loss of them. But among all things which are possessed in this life, the
body is, by God's most righteous laws, for the sin of old, man's heaviest
bond, which is well known as a fact but most incomprehensible in its
mystery. Lest this bond should be shaken and disturbed, the soul is shaken
with the fear of toil and pain; lest it should be lost and destroyed, the
soul is shaken with the fear of death. For the soul loves it from the force
of habit, not knowing that by using it well and wisely its resurrection and
reformation will, by the divine help and decree, be without any trouble
made subject to its authority. But when the soul turns to God wholly in
this love, it knows these things, and so will not only disregard death, but
will even desire it.
41. Then there is the great struggle with pain. But there is nothing,
though of iron hardness, which the fire of love cannot subdue. And when the
mind is carried up to God in this love, it will soar above all torture free
and glorious, with wings beauteous and unhurt, on which chaste love rises
to the embrace of God. Otherwise God must allow the lovers of gold, the
lovers of praise, the lovers of women, to have more fortitude than the
lovers of Himself, though love in those cases is rather to be called
passion or lust. And yet even here we may see with what force the mind
presses on with unflagging energy, in spite of all alarms, towards that it
loves; and we learn that we should bear all things rather than forsake God,
since those men bear so much in order to forsake Him.
CHAP. 23.--SCRIPTURE PRECEPTS AND EXAMPLES OF FORTITUDE.
42. Instead of quoting here authorities from the New Testament, where
it is said, "Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience and
experience, hope; "[1] and where, in addition to these words, there is
proof and confirmation of them from the example of those who spoke them; I
will rather summon an example of patience from the Old Testament, against
which the Manichaeans make fierce assaults. Nor will I refer to the man
who, in the midst of great bodily suffering, and with a dreadful disease in
his limbs, not only bore human evils, but discoursed of things divine.
Whoever gives considerate attention to the utterances of this man, will
learn from every one of them what value is to be attached to those things
which men try to keep in their power, and in so doing are themselves
brought by passion into bondage, so that they become the slaves of mortal
things, while seeking ignorantly to be their masters. This man, in the loss
of all his wealth, and on being suddenly reduced to the greatest poverty,
kept his mind so unshaken and fixed upon God, as to manifest that these
things were not great in his view, but that he was great in relation to
them, and God to him.[2] If this mind were to be found in men in our day,
we should not be so strongly cautioned in the New Testament against the
possession of these things in order that we may be perfect; for to have
these things without cleaving to them is much more admirable than not to
have them at all.[3]
43. But since we are speaking here of bearing pain and bodily
sufferings, I pass from this man, great as he was, indomitable as he was:
this is the case of a man. But these Scriptures present to me a woman of
amazing fortitude, and I must at once go on to her case. This woman, along
with seven children, allowed the tyrant and executioner to extract her
vitals from her body rather than a profane word from her mouth, encouraging
her sons by her exhortations, though she suffered in the tortures of their
bodies, and was herself to undergo what she called on them to bear.[4] What
patience could be greater than this? And yet why should we be astonished
that the love of God, implanted in her inmost heart, bore up against
tyrant, and executioner, and pain, and sex, and natural affection? Had she
not heard, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints ?"
[5] Had she not heard, "A patient man is better than the mightiest? "[6]
Had she not heard, "All that is appointed thee receive; and in pain bear
it; and in abasement keep thy patience: for in fire are gold and silver
tried?"(2) Had she not heard, "The fire tries the vessels of the potter,
and for just men is the trial of tribulation?''(2) These she knew, and many
other precepts of fortitude written in these books, which alone existed at
that time, by the same divine Spirit who writes those in the New Testament.
CHAP. 24.--OF JUSTICE AND PRUDENCE.
44. What of justice that pertains to God? As the Lord says, "Ye cannot
serve two masters,"(3) and the apostle denounces those who serve the
creature rather than the Creator,(4) was it not said before in the Old
Testament, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve?"(5) I need say no more on this, for these books are full of such
passages. The lover, then, whom we are describing, will get from justice
this rule of life, that he must with perfect readiness serve the God whom
he loves, the highest good, the highest wisdom, the highest peace;(6) and
as regards all other things, must either rule them as subject to himself,
or treat them with a view to their subjection. This rule of life, is, as we
have shown, confirmed by the authority of both Testaments.
45. With equal brevity we must treat of prudence, to which it belongs
to discern between what is to be desired and what to be shunned. Without
this, nothing can be done of what we have already spoken of. It is the part
of prudence to keep watch with most anxious vigilance, lest any evil
influence should stealthily creep in upon us. Thus the Lord often exclaims,
"Watch;"(7) and He says, "Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come
upon you."(8) And then it is said, "Know ye not that a little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump?''(9) And no passage can be quoted from the Old
Testament more expressly condemning this mental somnolence, which makes us
insensible to destruction advancing on us step by step, than those words of
the prophet, "He who despiseth small things shall fall by degrees."(10) On
this topic I might discourse at length did our haste allow of it. And did
our present task demand it, we might perhaps prove the depth of these
mysteries, by making a mock of which profane men in their perfect ignorance
fall, not certainly by degrees, but with a headlong overthrow.
CHAP. 25.--FOUR MORAL DUTIES REGARDING THE LOVE OF GOD, OF WHICH LOVE THE
REWARD IS ETERNAL LIFE AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH.
46. I need say no more about right conduct. For if God is man's chief
good, which you cannot deny, it clearly follows, since to seek the chief
good is to live well, that to live well is nothing else but to love God
with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind; and, as arising
from this, that this love must be preserved entire and incorrupt, which is
the part of temperance; that it give way before no troubles, which is the
part of fortitude; that it serve no other, which is the part of justice;
that it be watchful in its inspection of things lest craft or fraud steal
in, which is the part of prudence. This is the one perfection of man, by
which alone he can succeed in attaining to the purity of truth. This both
Testaments enjoin in concert; this is commended on both sides alike. Why do
you continue to cast reproaches on Scriptures of which you are ignorant? Do
you not see the folly of your attack upon books which only those who do not
understand them find fault with, and which only those who find fault fail
in understanding? For neither can an enemy know them, nor can one who knows
them be Other than a friend to them.
47. Let us then, as many as have in view to reach eternal life, love
God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind. For eternal
life contains the whole reward in the promise of which we rejoice; nor can
the reward precede desert, nor be given to a man before he is worthy of it.
What can be more unjust than this, and what is more just than God? We
should not then demand the reward before we deserve to get it. Here,
perhaps, it is not out of place to ask what is eternal life; or rather let
us hear the Bestower of it: "This," He says, "is life eternal, that they
should know Thee, the true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."(11)
So eternal life is the knowledge of the truth. See, then, how perverse and
preposterous is the character of those who think that their teaching of the
knowledge of God will make us perfect, when this is the reward of those
already perfect! What else, then, have we to do but first to love with full
affection Him whom we desire to know?(12) Hence arises that principle on
which we have all along insisted, that there is nothing more wholesome in
the Catholic Church than using authority(1) before argument.
CHAP. 26.--LOVE OF OURSELVES AND OF OUR NEIGHBOR.
48. To proceed to what remains. It may be thought that there is nothing
here about man himself, the lover. But to think this, shows a want of clear
perception. For it is impossible for one who loves God not to love himself.
For he alone has a proper love for himself who aims diligently at the
attainment of the chief and true good; and if this is nothing else but God,
as has been shown. what is to prevent one who loves God from loving
himself? And then, among men should there be no bond of mutual love? Yea,
verily; so that we can think of no surer step towards the love of God than
the love of man to man.
49. Let the Lord then supply us with the other precept in answer to the
question about the precepts of life; for He was not satisfied with one as
knowing that God is one thing and man another, and that the difference is
nothing less than that between the Creator and the thing created in the
likeness of its Creator. He says then that the second precept is, "Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."(2) Now you love yourself suitably when
you love God better than yourself. What, then, you aim at in yourself you
must aim at in your neighbor, namely, that he may love God with a perfect
affection. For you do not love him as yourself, unless you try to draw him
to that good which you are yourself pursuing. For this is the one good
which has room for all to pursue it along with thee. From this precept
proceed the duties of human society, in which it is hard to keep from
error. But the first thing to aim at is, that we should be benevolent, that
is, that we cherish no malice and no evil design against another. For man
is the nearest neighbor of man.
50. Hear also what Paul says: "The love of our neighbor," he says,
"worketh no ill."(3) The testimonies here made use of are very short, but,
if I mistake not, they are to the point, and sufficient for the purpose.
And every one knows how many and how weighty are the words to be found
everywhere in these books on the love of our neighbor. But as a man may sin
against another in two ways, either by injuring him or by not helping him
when it is in his power, and as it is for these things which no loving man
would do that men are called wicked, all that is required is, I think,
proved by these words, "The love of our neighbor worketh no ill." And if we
cannot attain to good unless we first desist from working evil, our love of
our neighbor is a sort of cradle of our love to God, so that, as it is
said, "the love of our neighbor worketh no ill," we may rise from this to
these other words, "We know that all things issue in good to them that love
God."(4)
51. But there is a sense in which these either rise together to
fullness and perfection, or, while the love of God is first in beginning,
the love of our neighbor is first in coming to perfection. For perhaps
divine love takes hold on us more rapidly at the outset, but we reach
perfection more easily in lower things. However that may be, the main point
is this, that no one should think that while he despises his neighbor he
will come to happiness and to the God whom he loves. And would that it were
as easy to seek the good of our neighbor, or to avoid hurting him, as it is
for one well trained and kind-hearted to love his neighbor! These things
require more than mere good-will, and can be done only by a high degree of
thoughtfulness and prudence, which belongs only to those to whom it is
given by God, the source of all good. On this topic--which is one, I think,
of great difficulty--I will try to say a few words such as my plan admits
of, resting all my hope in Him whose gifts these are.
CHAP. 27.--ON DOING GOOD TO THE BODY OF OUR NEIGHBOR.
52. Man, then, as viewed by his fellowman, is a rational soul with a
mortal and earthly body in its service. Therefore he who loves his neighbor
does good partly to the man's body, and partly to his soul. What benefits
the body is called medicine; what benefits the soul, discipline. Medicine
here includes everything that either preserves or restores bodily health.
It includes, therefore, not only what belongs to the art of medical men,
properly so called, but also food and drink, clothing and shelter, and
every means of covering and protection to guard our bodies against injuries
and mishaps from without as well as from within. For hunger and thirst, and
cold and heat, and all violence from without, produce loss of that health
which is the point to be considered.
53. Hence those who seasonably and wisely supply all the things
required for warding off these evils and distresses are called
compassionate, although they may have been so wise that no painful feeling
disturbed their mind in the exercise of compassion.(1) No doubt the word
compassionate implies suffering in the heart of the man who feels for the
sorrow of another. And it is equally true that a wise man ought to be free
from all painful emotion when he assists the needy, when he gives food to
the hungry and water to the thirsty, when he clothes the naked, when he
takes the stranger into his house, when he sets free the oppressed, when,
lastly, he extends his charity to the dead in giving them burial. Still the
epithet compassionate is a proper one, although he acts with tranquillity
of mind, not from the stimulus of painful feeling, but from motives of
benevolence. There is no harm in the word compassionate when there is no
passion in the case.
54. Fools, again, who avoid the exercise of compassion as a vice,
because they are not sufficiently moved by a sense of duty without feeling
also distressful emotion, are frozen into hard insensibility, which is very
different from the calm of a rational serenity. God, on the other hand, is
properly called compassionate; and the sense in which He is so will be
understood by those whom piety and diligence have made fit to understand.
There is a danger lest, in using the words of the learned, we harden the
souls of the unlearned by leading them away from compassion instead of
softening them with the desire of a charitable disposition. As compassion,
then, requires us to ward off these distresses from others, so harmlessness
forbids the infliction of them.
CHAP. 28.--ON DOING GOOD TO THE SOUL OF OUR NEIGHBOR. TWO PARTS OF
DISCIPLINE, RESTRAINT AND INSTRUCTION. THROUGH GOOD CONDUCT WE ARRIVE AT
THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH.
55. As regards discipline, by which the health of the mind is restored,
without which bodily health avails nothing for security against misery, the
subject is one of great difficulty. And as in the body we said it is one
thing to cure diseases and wounds, which few can do properly, and another
thing to meet the cravings of hunger and thirst, and to give assistance in
all the other ways in which any man may at any time help another; so in the
mind there are some things in which the high and rare offices of the
teacher are not much called for,--as, for instance, in advice and
exhortation to give to the needy the things already mentioned as required
for the body. To give such advice is to aid the mind by discipline, as
giving the things themselves is siding the body by our resources. But there
are other cases where diseases of the mind, many and various in kind, are
healed in a way strange and indescribable. Unless His medicine were sent
from heaven to men, so heedlessly do they go on in sin, there would be no
hope of salvation; and, indeed, even bodily health, if you go to the root
of the matter, can have come to men from none but God, who gives to all
things their being and their well-being.
56. This discipline, then, which is the medicine of the mind, as far as
we can gather from the sacred Scriptures, includes two things, restraint
and instruction. Restraint implies fear, and instruction love, in the
person benefited by the discipline; for in the giver of the benefit there
is the love without the fear. In both of these God Himself, by whose
goodness and mercy it is that we are anything, has given us in the two
Testaments a rule of discipline. For though both are found in both
Testaments, still fear is prominent in the Old, and love in the New; which
the apostle calls bondage in the one, and liberty in the other. Of the
marvellous order and divine harmony of these Testaments it would take long
to speak, and many pious and learned men have discoursed on it. The theme
demands many books to set it forth and explain it as far as is possible for
man. He, then, who loves his neighbor endeavors all he can to procure his
safety in body and in soul, making the health of the mind the standard in
his treatment of the body. And as regards the mind, his endeavors are in
this order, that he should first fear and then love God. This is true
excellence of conduct, and thus the knowledge of the truth is acquired
which we are ever in the pursuit of.
57. The Manichaeans agree with me as regards the duty of loving God and
our neighbor, but they deny that this is taught in the Old Testament. How
greatly they err in this is, I think, clearly shown by the passages quoted
above on both these duties. But, in a single word, and one which only stark
madness can oppose, do they not see the unreasonableness of denying that
these very two precepts which they commend are quoted by the Lord in the
Gospel from the Old Testament, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind;" and the other,
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself?"(1) Or if they dare not deny
this, from the light of truth being too strong for them, let them deny that
these precepts are salutary; let them deny, if they can, that they teach
the best morality; let them assert that it is not a duty to love God, or to
love our neighbor; that all things do not issue in good to them that love
God; that it is not true that the love of our neighbor worketh no ill (a
two-fold regulation of human life which is most salutary and excellent). By
such assertions they cut themselves off not only from Christians, but from
mankind. But if they dare not speak thus, but must confess the divinity of
the precepts, why do they not desist from assailing and maligning with
horrible profanity the books from which they are quoted?
58. Will they say, as they often do, that although we find these
precepts in the books, it does not follow that all is good that is found
there? How to meet and refute this quibble I do not well see. Shall I
discuss the words of the Old Testament one by one, to prove to stubborn and
ignorant men their perfect agreement with the New Testament? But when will
this be done? When shall I have time, or they patience? What, then, is to
be done? Shall I desert the cause, and leave them to escape detection in an
opinion which, though false and impious, is hard to disprove? I will not.
God will Himself be at hand to aid me; nor will He suffer me in those
straits to remain helpless or forsaken.
CHAP. 29.--OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE SCRIPTURES.
59. Attend, then, ye Manichaeans, if perchance there are some of you of
whom your superstition has hold so as to allow you yet to escape. Attend, I
say, without obstinacy, without the desire to oppose, otherwise your
decision will be fatal to yourselves. No one can doubt, and you are not so
lost to the truth as not to understand that if it is good, as all allow, to
love God and our neighbor, whatever hangs on these two precepts cannot
rightly be pronounced bad. What it is that hangs on them it would be absurd
to think of learning from me. Hear Christ Himself; hear Christ, I say; hear
the Wisdom of God: "On these two commandments," He says, "hang all the law
and the prophets."(2)
60. What can the most shameless obstinacy say to this? That these are
not Christ's words? But they are written in the Gospel as His words. That
the writing is false? Is not this most profane blasphemy? Is it not most
presumptuous to speak thus? Is it not most foolhardy? Is it not most
criminal? The worshippers of idols, who hate even the name of Christ, never
dared to speak thus against these Scriptures. For the utter overthrow of
all literature will follow, and there will be an end to all books handed
down from the past, if what is supported by such a strong popular belief
and established by the uniform testimony of so many men and so many times,
is brought into such suspicion, that it is not allowed to have the credit
and the authority of common history. In fine, what can you quote from any
writings of which I may not speak in this way if it is quoted against my
opinion and my purpose?(3)
61. And is it not intolerable that they forbid us to believe a book
widely known and placed now in the hands of all, while they insist on our
believing the book which they quote? If any writing is to be suspected,
what should be more so than one which has not merited notoriety, or which
may be throughout a forgery, bearing a false name? If you force such a
writing on me against my will, and make a display of authority to drive me
into belief, shall I, when I have a writing which I see spread far and wide
for a length of time, and sanctioned by the concordant testimony of
churches scattered over all the world, degrade myself by doubting, and,
worse degradation, by doubting at your suggestion? Even if you brought
forward other readings, I should not receive them unless supported by
general agreement; and this being the case, do you think that now, when you
bring forward nothing to compare with the text except your own silly and
inconsiderate statement, mankind are so unreasonable and so forsaken by
divine Providence as to prefer to those Scriptures not others quoted by you
in refutation, but merely your own words? You ought to bring forward
another manuscript with the same contents, but incorrupt and more correct,
with only the passage wanting which you charge with being spurious. For
example, if you hold that the Epistle of Paul to the Romans is spurious,
you must bring forward another incorrupt, or rather another manuscript with
the same epistle of the same apostle, free from error and corruption. You
say you will not, lest you be suspected of corrupting it. This is your
usual reply, and a true one. Were you to do this, we should assuredly have
this very suspicion; and all men of any sense would have it too. See then
what you are to think of your own authority; and consider whether it is
right to believe your words against these Scriptures, when the simple fact
that a manuscript is brought forward by you makes it dangerous to put faith
in it.
CHAP. 30.--THE CHURCH APOSTROPHISED AS TEACHER OF ALL WISDOM. DOCTRINE OF
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
62. But why say more on this? For who but sees that men who dare to
speak thus against the Christian Scriptures, though they may not be what
they are suspected of being, are at least no Christians? For to Christians
this rule of life is given, that we should love the Lord Our God with all
the heart, with all the soul, and with all the mind, and our neighbor as
ourselves; for on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Rightly, then, Catholic Church, most true mother of Christians, dost thou
not only teach that God alone, to find whom is the happiest life, must be
worshipped in perfect purity and chastity, bringing in no creature as an
object of adoration whom we should be required to serve; and from that
incorrupt and inviolable eternity to which alone man should be made
subject, in cleaving to which alone the rational soul escapes misery,
excluding everything made, everything liable to change, everything under
the power of time; without confounding what eternity, and truth, and peace
itself keeps separate, or separating what a common majesty unites: but thou
dost also contain love and charity to our neighbor in such a way, that for
all kinds of diseases with which souls are for their sins afflicted, there
is found with thee a medicine of prevailing efficacy.
63. Thy training and teaching are childlike for children, forcible for
youths, peaceful for the aged, taking into account the age of the mind as
well as of the body. Thou subjectest women to their husbands in chaste and
faithful obedience, not to gratify passion, but for the propagation of
offspring,(1) and for domestic society. Thou givest to men authority over
their wives, not to mock the weaker sex, but in the laws of unfeigned love.
Thou dost subordinate children to their parents in a kind of free bondage,
and dost set parents over their children in a godly rule. Thou bindest
brothers to brothers in a religions tie stronger and closer than that of
blood. Without violation of the connections of nature and of choice, thou
bringest within the bond of mutual love every relationship of kindred, and
every alliance of affinity. Thou teachest servants to cleave to their
masters from delight in their task rather than from the necessity of their
position. Thou renderest masters forbearing to their servants, from a
regard to God their common Master, and more disposed to advise than to
compel. Thou unitest citizen to citizen, nation to nation, yea, man to man,
from the recollection of their first parents, not only in society but in
fraternity. Thou teachest kings to seek the good of their peoples; thou
counsellest peoples to be subject to their kings. Thou teachest carefully
to whom honor is due, to whom regard, to whom reverence, to whom fear, to
whom consolation, to whom admonition, to whom encouragement, to whom
discipline, to whom rebuke, to whom punishment; showing both how all are
not due to all, and how to all love is due, and how injury is due to
none.(2)
64. Then, after this human love has nourished and invigorated the mind
cleaving to thy breast, and fitted it for following God, when the divine
majesty has begun to disclose itself as far as suffices for man while a
dweller on the earth, such fervent charity is produced, and such a flame of
divine love is kindled, that by the burning out of all vices, and by the
purification and sanctification of the man, it becomes plain how divine are
these words, "I am a consuming fire,"(3) and, "I have come to send fire on
the earth."(4) These two utterances of one God stamped on both Testaments,
exhibit with harmonious testimony, the sanctification of the soul, pointing
forward to the accomplishment of that which is also quoted in the New
Testament from the Old: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where
is thy sting? Where. O death, is thy contest?" (1) Could these heretics
understand this one saying, no longer proud but quite reconciled, they
would worship God nowhere but with thee and in thy bosom. In thee, as is
fit, divine precepts are kept by widely-scattered multitudes. In thee, as
is fit, it is well understood how much more heinous sin is when the law is
known than when it is unknown. For "the sting of death is sin, and the
strength of sin is the law," (2) which adds to the force with which the
consciousness of disregard of the precept strikes and slays. In thee it is
seen, as is fit, how vain is effort under the law, when lust lays waste the
mind, and is held in Check by fear of punishment, instead of being
overborne by the love of virtue. Thine, as is fit, are the many hospitable,
the many friendly, the many compassionate, the many learned, the many
chaste, the many saints, the many so ardent in their love to God, that in
perfect continence and amazing indifference to this world they find
happiness even in solitude.
CHAP. 31.--THE LIFE OF THE ANACHORETES AND COENOBITES SET AGAINST THE
CONTINENCE OF THE MANICHAEANS.
65. What must we think is seen by those who can live without seeing
their fellow-creatures, though not without loving them? It must be
something transcending human things in contemplating which man can live
without seeing his fellow-man. Hear now, ye Manichaeans, the customs and
notable continence of perfect Christians, who have thought it right not
only to praise but also to practise the height of chastity, that you may be
restrained, if there is any shame in you, from vaunting your abstinence
before uninstructed minds as if it were the hardest of all things. I will
speak of things of which you are not ignorant, though you hide them from
us. For who does not know that there is a daily increasing multitude of
Christian men of absolute continence spread all over the world, especially
in the East and in Egypt, as you cannot help knowing?
66. I will say nothing of those to whom I just now alluded, who, in
complete seclusion from the view of men, inhabit regions utterly barren,
content with simple bread, which is brought to them periodically, and with
water, enjoying communion with God, to whom in purity of mind they cleave,
and most blessed in contemplating His beauty, which can be seen only by the
understanding of saints. I will say nothing of them, because some people
think them to have abandoned human things more than they ought, not
considering how much those may benefit us in their minds by prayer, and in
their lives by example, whose bodies we are not permitted to see. But to
discuss this point would take long, and would be fruitless; for if a man
does not of his own accord regard this high pitch of sanctity as admirable
and honorable, how can our speaking lead him to do so? Only the
Manichaeans, who make a boast of nothing, should be reminded that the
abstinence and continence of the great saints of the Catholic Church has
gone so far, that some think it should be checked and recalled within the
limits of humanity,--so far above men, even in the judgment of those who
disapprove, have their minds soared.
67. But if this is beyond our tolerance, who can but admire and commend
those who, slighting and discarding the pleasures of this world, living
together in a most chaste and holy society, unite in passing their time in
prayers, in readings, in discussions, without any swelling of pride, or
noise of contention, or sullenness of envy; but quiet, modest, peaceful,
their life is one of perfect harmony and devotion to God, an offering most
acceptable to Him from whom the power to do those things is obtained? No
one possesses anything of his own; no one is a burden to another. They work
with their hands in such occupations as may feed their bodies without
distracting their minds from God. The product of their toil they give to
the decans or tithesmen,--so called from being set over the tithes,--so
that no one is occupied with the care of his body, either in food or
clothes, or in anything else required for daily use or for the common
ailments. These decans, again, arranging everything with great care, and
meeting promptly the demands made by that life on account of bodily
infirmities, have one called "father," to whom they give in their accounts.
These fathers are not only more saintly in their conduct, but also
distinguished for divine learning, and of high character in every way; and
without pride they superintend those whom they call their children, having
themselves great authority in giving orders, and meeting with willing
obedience from those under their charge. At the close of the day they
assemble from their separate dwellings before their meal to hear their
father, assembling to the number of three thousand at least for one father;
for one may have even a much larger number than this. They listen with
astonishing eagerness in perfect silence, and give expression to the
feelings of their minds as moved by the words of the preacher, in groans,
or tears, or signs of joy without noise or shouting. Then there is
refreshment for the body, as much as health and a sound condition of the
body requires, every one checking unlawful appetite, so as not to go to
excess even in the poor, inexpensive fare provided. So they not only
abstain from flesh and wine, in order to gain the mastery over their
passions, but also from those things which are only the more likely to whet
the appetite of the palate and of the stomach, from what some call their
greater cleanness, which often serves as a ridiculous and disgraceful
excuse for an unseemly taste for exquisite viands, as distant from animal
food. Whatever they possess in addition to what is required for their
support (and much is obtained, owing to their industry and frugality), they
distribute to the needy with greater care than they took in procuring it
for themselves. For while they make no effort to obtain abundance, they
make every effort to prevent their abundance remaining with them,--so much
so, that they send shiploads to places inhabited by poor people. I need say
no more on a matter known to all. (1)
68. Such, too, is the life of the women, who serve God assiduously and
chastely, living apart and removed as far as propriety demands from the
men, to whom they are united only in pious affection and in imitation of
virtue. No young men are allowed access to them, nor even old men, however
respectable and approved, except to the porch, in order to furnish
necessary supplies. For the women occupy and maintain themselves by working
in wool, and hand over the cloth to the brethren, from whom, in return,
they get what they need for food. Such customs, such a life, such
arrangements, such a system, I could not commend as it deserves, if I
wished to commend it; besides, I am afraid that it would seem as if I
thought it unlikely to gain acceptance from the mere description of it, if
I considered myself obliged to add an ornamental eulogium to the simple
narrative. Ye Manichaeans, find fault here if you can. Do not bring into
prominence our tares before men too blind to discriminate.
CHAP. 32.--PRAISE OF THE CLERGY.
69. There is not, however, such narrowness in the moral excellence of
the Catholic Church as that I should limit my praise of it to the life of
those here mentioned. For how many bishops have I known most excellent and
holy men, how many, presbyters, how many deacons, and ministers of all
kinds of the divine sacraments, whose virtue seems to me more admirable and
more worthy of commendation on account of the greater difficulty of
preserving it amidst the manifold varieties of men, and in this life of
turmoil! For they preside over men needing cure as much as over those
already cured. The vices of the crowd must be borne with in order that they
may be cured, and the plague must be endured before it is subdued. To keep
here the best way of life and a mind calm and peaceful is very hard. Here,
in a word, we are among people who are learning to live. There they live.
CHAP. 33.--ANOTHER KIND OF MEN LIVING TOGETHER IN CITIES. FASTS OF THREE
DAYS.
70. Still I would not on this account cast a slight upon a praiseworthy
class of Christians,--those, namely, who live together in cities, quite
apart from common life. I saw at Milan a lodging-house of saints, in number
not a few, presided over by one presbyter, a man of great excellence and
learning. At Rome I knew several places where there was in each one eminent
for weight of character, and prudence, and divine knowledge, presiding over
all the rest who lived with him, in Christian charity, and sanctity, and
liberty. These, too, are not burdensome to any one; but, in the Eastern
fashion, and on the authority of the Apostle Paul, they maintain themselves
with their own hands. I was told that many practised fasts of quite amazing
severity, not merely taking only one meal daily towards night, which is
everywhere quite common, but very often continuing for three days or more
in succession without food or drink. And this among not men only, but
women, who also live together in great numbers as widows or virgins,
gaining a livelihood by spinning and weaving, and presided over in each
case by a woman of the greatest judgment and experience, skilled and
accomplished not only in directing and forming moral conduct, but also in
instructing the understanding. (2)
71. With all this, no one is pressed to endure hardships for which he
is unfit; nothing is imposed on any one against his will; nor is he
condemned by the rest because he confesses himself too feeble to imitate
them: for they bear in mind how strongly Scripture enjoins charity on all:
they bear in mind "To the pure all things are pure," (1) and "Not that
which entereth into your mouth defileth you, but that which cometh out of
it." (2) Accordingly, all their endeavors are concerned not about the
rejection of kinds of food as polluted, but about the subjugation of
inordinate desire and the maintenance of brotherly love. They remember,
"Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both
it and them;" (3) and again, "Neither if we eat shall we abound, nor if we
refrain from eating shall we be in want;" (4) and, above all, this: "It is
good, my brethren, not to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor anything whereby
thy brother is offended;" for this passage shows that love is the end to be
aimed at in all these things. "For one man," he says, "believes that he can
eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. He that eateth, let him
not despise him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him
that eateth: for God hath approved him. Who art thou that thou shouldest
judge another man's servant? To his own master he stands or fails; but he
shall stand: for God is able to make him to stand." And a little after: "He
that eateth, to the Lord he eateth, and giveth God thanks; and he that
eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." And also in
what follows: "So every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let
us not, then, any more judge one another: but judge this rather, that ye
place no stumbling-block, or cause of offence, in the way of a brother. I
know, and am confident in the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing common in
itself: but to him that thinketh anything to be common, to him it is
common." Could he have shown better that it is not in the things we eat,
but in the mind, that there is a power able to pollute it, and therefore
that even those who are fit to think lightly of these things, and know
perfectly that they are not polluted if they take any food in mental
superiority, without being gluttons, should still have regard to charity?
See what he adds: "For if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest
thou not charitably." (5)
72. Read the rest: it is too long to quote all. You will find that
those able to think lightly of such things,--that is, those of greater
strength and stability,--are told that they must nevertheless abstain, lest
those should be offended Who from their weakness are still in need of such
abstinence. The people I was describing know and observe these things; for
they are Christians, not heretics. They understand Scripture according to
the apostolic teaching, not according to the presumptuous and fictitious
name of apostle. (6) Him that eats not no one despises; him that eats no
one judges; he who is weak eats herbs. Many who are strong, however, do
this for the sake of the weak; with many the reason for so doing is not
this, but that they may have a cheaper diet, and may lead a life of the
greatest tranquillity, with the least expensive provision for the support
of the body. "For all things are lawful for me," he says; "but I will not
be brought under the power of any." (7) Thus many do not eat flesh, and yet
do not superstitiously regard it as unclean. And so the same people who
abstain when in health take it when unwell without any fear, if it is
required as a cure. Many drink no wine; but they do not think that wine
defiles them; for they cause it to be given with the greatest propriety and
moderation to people of languid temperament, and, in short, to all who
cannot have bodily health without it. When some foolishly refuse it, they
counsel them as brothers not to let a silly superstition make them weaker
instead of making them holier. They read to them the apostle's precept to
his disciple to "take a little wine for his many infirmities." (8) Then
they diligently exercise piety; bodily exercise, they know, profiteth for a
short time, as the same apostle says. (9)
73. Those, then who are able, and they are without number, abstain both
from flesh and from wine for two reasons: either for the weakness of their
brethren, or for their own liberty. Charity is principally attended to.
There is charity in their choice of diet, charity in their speech, charity
in their dress, charity in their looks. Charity is the point where they
meet, and the plan by which they act. To transgress against charity is
thought criminal, like transgressing against God. Whatever opposes this is
attacked and expelled; whatever injures it is not allowed to continue for a
single day. They know that it has been so enjoined by Christ and the
apostles; that without it all things are empty, with it all are fulfilled.
CHAP. 34. --THE CHURCH IS NOT TO BE BLAMED FOR THE CONDUCT OF BAD
CHRISTIANS, WORSHIPPERS OF TOMBS AND PICTURES.
74. Make objections against these, ye Manichaeans, if you can. Look at
these people, and speak of them reproachfully, if you dare, without
falsehood. Compare their fasts with your fasts, their chastity with yours;
compare them to yourselves in dress, food, self-restraint, and, lastly, in
charity. Compare, which is most to the point, their precepts with yours.
Then you will see the difference between show and sincerity, between the
right way and the wrong, between faith and imposture, between strength and
inflatedness, between happiness and wretchedness, between unity and
disunion; in short, between the sirens of superstition and the harbor of
religion.
75. Do not summon against me professors of the Christian name, who
neither know nor give evidence of the power of their profession. (1) Do not
hunt up the numbers of ignorant people, who even in the true religion are
superstitious, or are so given up to evil passions as to forget what they
have promised to God. I know that there are many worshippers of tombs and
pictures. I know that there are many who drink to great excess over the
dead, and who, in the feasts which they make for corpses, bury themselves
over the buried, and give to their gluttony and drunkenness the name of
religion. I know that there are many who in words have renounced this
world, and yet desire to be burdened with all the weight of worldly things,
and rejoice in such burdens. Nor is it surprising that among so many
multitudes you should find some by condemning whose life you may deceive
the unwary and seduce them from Catholic safety; for in your small numbers
you are at a loss when called on to show even one out of those whom you
call the elect who keeps the precepts, which in your indefensible
superstition you profess. How silly those are, how impious, how
mischievous, and to what extent they are neglected by most, nearly all of
you, I have shown in another volume.
76. My advice to you now is this: that you should at least desist from
slandering the Catholic Church, by declaiming against the conduct of men
whom the Church herself condemns, seeking daily to correct them as wicked
children. Then, if any of them by good will and by the help of God are
corrected, they regain by repentance what they had lost by sin. Those,
again, who with wicked will persist in their old vices, or even add to them
others still worse, are indeed allowed to remain in the field of the Lord,
and to grow along with the good seed; but the time for separating the
tares will come. (2) Or if, from their having at least the Christian name,
they are to be placed among the chaff rather than among thistles, there
will also come One to purge the floor and to separate the chaff from the
wheat, and to assign to each part (according to its desert) the due
reward.(3)
CHAP. 35.--MARRIAGE AND PROPERTY ALLOWED TO THE BAPTIZED BY THE APOSTLES.
77. Meanwhile, why do you rage? why does party spirit blind your eyes?
Why do you entangle yourselves in a long defence of such great error? Seek
for fruit in the field, seek for wheat in the floor: they will he found
easily, and will present themselves to the inquirer. Why do you look so
exclusively at the dross? Why do you use the roughness of the hedge to
scare away the inexperienced from the fatness of the garden? There is a
proper entrance, though known to but a few; and by it men come in, though
you disbelieve it, or do not wish to find it. In the Catholic Church there
are believers without number who do not use the world, and there are those
who "use it," in the words of the apostle, "as not using it," (4) as was
proved in those times when Christians were forced to worship idols. For
then, how many wealthy men, how many peasant householders, how many
merchants, how many military men, how many leading men in their own cities,
and how many senators, people of both sexes, giving up all these empty and
transitory things, though while they used them they were not bound down by
them, endured death for the salutary faith and religion, and proved to
unbelievers that instead of being possessed by all these things they really
possessed them?
78. Why do you reproach us by saying that men renewed in baptism ought
no longer to beget children, or to possess fields, and houses, and money?
Paul allows it. For, as cannot be denied, he wrote to believers, after
recounting many kinds of evil-doers who shall not possess the kingdom of
God: "And such were you," he says: "but ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and
by the Spirit of our God." By the washed and sanctified, no one, assuredly,
will venture to think any are meant but believers, and those who have
renounced this world. But, after showing to whom he writes, let us see
whether he allows these things to them. He goes on: "All things are lawful
for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but
I will not be brought under the power of any. Meat for the belly, and the
belly for meats: but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not
for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. But God
raised up the Lord, and will raise us up also by His own power. Know ye not
that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members
of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. Know ye not
that he which is joined to an harlot is made one body? for the twain, saith
He, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
Flee fornication. Whatever sin a man doeth is without the body: but he that
committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. Know ye not that your
members are the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of
God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a great price: glorify
God, and carry Him in your body. (1) "But of the things concerning which ye
wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to
avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman
have her own husband. Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence:
and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her
own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of
his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with
consent for a time, that ye may have leisure for prayer; and come together
again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. But I speak this by
permission, and not of commandment. For I would that all men were even as I
myself: but every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner,
and another after that." (2)
79. Has the apostle, think you, both shown sufficiently to the strong
what is highest, and permitted to the weaker what is next best? Not to
touch a woman he shows is highest when he says, "I would that all men were
even as I myself." But next to this highest is conjugal chastity, that man
may not be the prey of fornication. Did he say that these people were not
yet believers because they Were married? Indeed, by this conjugal chastity
he says that those who are united are sanctified by one another, if one of
them is an unbeliever, and that their children also are sanctified. "The
unbelieving husband," he says, "is sanctified by the believing wife, and
the unbelieving woman by the believing husband: otherwise your children
would be unclean; but now are they holy." (3) Why do you persist in
opposition to such plain truth? Why do you try to darken the light of
Scripture by vain shadows?
80. Do not say that catechumens are allowed to have wives, but not
believers; that catechumens may have money, but not believers. For there
are many who use as not using. And in that sacred washing the renewal of
the new man is begun so as gradually to reach perfection, in some more
quickly in others more slowly. The progress, however, to a new life is made
in the case of many, if we view the matter without hostility, but
attentively. As the apostle says of himself, "Though the outward man
perish, the inward man is renewed day by day.'' (4) The apostle says that
the inward man is renewed day by day that it may reach perfection; and you
wish it to begin with perfection! And it were well if you did wish it. In
reality, you aim not at raising the weak, but at misleading the unwary. You
ought not to have spoken so arrogantly, even if it were known that you are
perfect in your childish precepts. But when your conscience knows that
those whom you bring into your sect, when they come to a more intimate
acquaintance with you, will find many things in you which nobody hearing
you accuse others would suspect, is it not great impertinence to demand
perfection in the weaker Catholics, to turn away the inexperienced from the
Catholic Church, while you show nothing of the kind in yourself to those
thus turned away? But not to seem to inveigh against you without reason, I
will now close this volume, and will proceed at last to set forth the
precepts of your life and your notable customs.
ON THE MORALS OF THE MANICHAEANS. [DE MORIBUS MANICHAEORUM.]
CONTAINING A PARTICULAR REFUTATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THESE HERETICS
REGARDING THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF EVIL; AN EXPOSURE OF THEIR PRETENDED
SYMBOLICAL CUSTOMS OF THE MOUTH, OF THE HANDS, AND OF THE BREAST; AND A
CONDEMNATION OF THEIR SUPERSTITIOUS ABSTINENCE AND UNHOLY MYSTERIES.
LASTLY, SOME CRIMES BROUGHT TO LIGHT AMONG THE MANICHAEANS ARE MENTIONED.
CHAP. 1.--THE SUPREME GOOD IS THAT WHICH IS POSSESSED OF SUPREME EXISTENCE.
1. EVERY one, I suppose, will allow that the question of things good
and evil belongs to moral science, in which such terms are in common use.
It is therefore to be wished that men would bring to these inquiries such a
clear intellectual perfection as might enable them to see the chief good,
than which nothing is better or higher, next in order to which comes a
rational soul in a state of purity and perfection.(1) If this were clearly
understood, it would also become evident that the chief good is that which
is properly described as having supreme and original existence. For that
exists in the highest sense of the word which continues always the same,
which is throughout like itself, which cannot in any part be corrupted or
changed, which is not subject to time, which admits of no variation in its
present as compared with its former condition. This is existence in its
true sense. For in this signification of the word existence there is
implied a nature which is self-contained, and which continues immutably.
Such things can be said only of God, to whom there is nothing contrary in
the strict sense of the word. For the contrary of existence is non-
existence. There is therefore no nature contrary to God. But since the
minds with which we approach the study of these subjects have their vision
damaged and dulled by silly notions, and by perversity of will, let us try
as we can to gain some little knowledge of this great matter by degrees and
with caution, making our inquiries not like men able to see, but like men
groping the dark.
CHAP. 2.--WHAT EVIL IS. THAT EVIL IS THAT WHICH IS AGAINST NATURE. IN
ALLOWING THIS, THE MANICHAEANS REFUTE THEMSELVES,
2. You Manichaeans often, if not in every case, ask those whom you try
to bring over to your heresy, Whence is evil? Suppose I had now met you for
the first time, I would ask you, if you please, to follow my example in
putting aside for a little the explanation you suppose yourselves to have
got of these subjects, and to commence this great inquiry with me as if for
the first time. You ask me, Whence is evil? I ask you in return, What is
evil? Which is the more reasonable question? Are those right who ask whence
a thing is, when they do not know what it is; or he who thinks it necessary
to inquire first what it is, in order to avoid the gross absurdity of
searching for the origin of a thing unknown? Your answer is quite correct,
when you say that evil is that which is contrary to nature; for no one is
so mentally blind as not to see that, in every kind, evil is that which is
contrary to the nature of the kind. But the establishment of this doctrine
is the overthrow of your heresy. For evil is no nature, if it is contrary
to nature. Now, according to you, evil is a certain nature and substance.
Moreover, whatever is contrary to nature must oppose nature and seek its
destruction. For nature means nothing else than that which anything is
conceived of as being in its own kind. Hence is the new word which we now
use derived from the word for being,--essence namely, or, as we usually
say, substance,--while before these words were in use, the word nature was
used instead. Here, then, if you will consider the matter without
stubbornness, we see that evil is that which falls away from essence and
tends to non-existence.
3. Accordingly, when the Catholic Church declares that God is the
author of all natures and substances, those who understand this understand
at the same time that God is not the author of evil. For how can He who is
the cause of the being of all things be at the same time the cause of their
not being,--that is, of their falling off from essence and tending to non-
existence? For this is what reason plainly declares to be the definition of
evil. Now, how can that race of evil of yours, which you make the supreme
evil, be against nature, that is, against substance, when it, according to
you, is itself a nature and substance? For if it acts against itself, it
destroys its own existence; and when that is completely done, it will come
at last to be the supreme evil. But this cannot be done, because you will
have it not only to be, but to be everlasting. That cannot then be the
chief evil which is spoken of as a substance.(1)
4. But what am I to do? I know that many of you can understand nothing
of all this. I know, too, that there are some who have a good understanding
and can see these things, and yet are so stubborn in their choice of evil,-
-a choice that will ruin their understanding as well,--that they try rather
to find what reply they can make in order to impose upon inactive and
feeble minds, instead of giving their assent to the truth. Still I shall
not regret having written either what one of you may come some day to
consider impartially, and be led to abandon your error, or what men of
understanding and in allegiance to God, and who are still untainted with
your errors, may read and so be kept from being led astray by your
addresses.
CHAP. 3.--IF EVIL IS DEFINED AS THAT WHICH IS HURTFUL, THIS IMPLIES ANOTHER
REFUTATION OF THE MANICHAEANS.
5. Let us then inquire more carefully, and, if possible, more plainly.
I ask you again, What is evil? If you say it is that which is hurtful,
here, too, you will not answer amiss. But consider, I pray you; be on your
guard, I beg of you; be so good as to lay aside party spirit, and make the
inquiry for the sake of finding the truth, not of getting the better of it.
Whatever is hurtful takes away some good from that to which it is hurtful;
for without the loss of good there can be no hurt. What, I appeal to you,
can be plainer than this? what more intelligible? What else is required for
complete demonstration to one of average understanding, if he is not per
verse? But, if this is granted, the consequence seems plain. In that race
which you take for the chief evil, nothing can be liable to be hurt, since
there is no good in it. But if, as you assert, there are two natures,--the
kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness; since you make the kingdom of
light to be God, attributing to it an uncompounded nature,(2) so that it
has no part inferior to another, you must grant, however decidedly in
opposition to yourselves, you must grant, nevertheless, that this nature,
which you not only do not deny to be the chief good, but spend all your
strength in trying to show that it is so, is immutable, incorruptible,
impenetrable, inviolable, for otherwise it would not be the chief good; for
the chief good is that than which there is nothing better, and for such a
nature to be hurt is impossible. Again, if, as has been shown, to hurt is
to deprive of good, there can be no hurt to the kingdom of darkness, for
there is no good in it. And as the kingdom of light cannot be hurt, as it
is inviolable, what can the evil you speak of be hurtful to?
CHAP. 4.--THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT IS GOOD IN ITSELF AND WHAT IS GOOD BY
PARTICIPATION.
6. Now, compare with this perplexity, from which you cannot escape, the
consistency of the statements in the teaching of the Catholic Church,
according to which there is one good which is good supremely and in itself,
and not by the participation of any good, but by its own nature and
essence; and another good which is good by participation, and by having
something bestowed. Thus it has its being as good from the supreme good,
which, however, is still self-contained, and loses nothing. This second
kind of good is called a creature, which is liable to hurt through falling
away. But of this failing away God is not the author, for He is author of
existence and of being. Here we see the proper use of the word evil; for it
is correctly applied not to essence, but to negation or loss. We see, too,
what nature it is which is liable to hurt. This nature is not the chief
evil, for when it is hurt it loses good; nor is it the chief good, for its
falling away from good is because it is good not intrinsically, but by
possessing the good. And a thing cannot be good by nature when it is spoken
of as being made, which shows that the goodness was bestowed. Thus, on the
one hand, God is the good, and all things which He has made are good,
though not so good as He who made them. For what madman would venture to
require that the works should equal the workman, the creatures the Creator?
What more do you want? Could you wish for anything plainer than this?
CHAP. 5.--IF EVIL IS DEFINED TO BE CORRUPTION, THIS COMPLETELY REFUTES THE
MANICHAEAN HERESY.
7. I ask a third time, What is evil? Perhaps you will reply,
Corruption. Undeniably this is a general definition of evil; for corruption
implies opposition to nature, and also hurt. But corruption exists not by
itself, but in some substance which it corrupts; for corruption itself is
not a substance. So the thing which it corrupts is not corruption, is not
evil; for what is corrupted suffers the loss of integrity and purity. So
that which has no purity to lose cannot be corrupted; and what has, is
necessarily good by the participation of purity. Again, what is corrupted
is perverted; and what is perverted suffers the loss of order, and order is
good. To be corrupted, then, does not imply the absence of good; for in
corruption it can be deprived of good, which could not be if there was the
absence of good. Therefore that race of darkness, if it was destitute of
all good, as you say it was, could not be corrupted, for it had nothing
which corruption could take from it; and if corruption takes nothing away,
it does not corrupt. Say now, if you dare, that God and the kingdom of God
can be corrupted, when you cannot show how the kingdom of the devil, such
as you make it, can be corrupted.
CHAP. 6.--WHAT CORRUPTION AFFECTS AND WHAT IT IS.
8. What further does the Catholic light say? What do you suppose, but
what is the actual truth, that it is the created substance which can be
corrupted, for the uncreated, which is the chief good, is incorruptible;
and corruption, which is the chief evil, cannot be corrupted; besides, that
it is not a substance? But if you ask what corruption is, consider to what
it seeks to bring the things which it corrupts; for it affects those things
according to its own nature. Now all things by corruption fall away from
what they were, and are brought to non-continuance, to non-existence; for
existence implies continuance. Thus the supreme and chief existence is so
called because it continues in itself, or is self-contained. In the case of
a thing changing for the better, the change is not from continuance, but
from perversion to the worse, that is, from falling away from essence; the
author of which falling away is not He who is the author of the essence. So
in some things there is change for the better, and so a tendency towards
existence. And this change is not called a perversion, but reversion or
conversion; for perversion is opposed to orderly arrangement. Now things
which tend towards existence tend towards order, and, attaining order they
attain existence, as far as that is possible to a creature. For order
reduces to a certain uniformity that which it arranges; and existence is
nothing else than being one. Thus, so far as anything acquires unity, so
far it exists. For uniformity and harmony are the effects of unity, and by
these compound things exist as far as they have existence. For simple
things exist by themselves, for they are one. But things not simple imitate
unity by the agreement of their parts; and so far as they attain this, so
far they exist, This arrangement is the cause of existence, disorder of
non-existence; and perversion or corruption are the other names for
disorder. So whatever is corrupted tends to non-existence. You may now be
left to reflect upon the effect of corruption, that you may discover what
is the chief evil; for it is that which corruption aims at accomplishing.
CHAP. 7.--THE GOODNESS OF GOD PREVENTS CORRUPTION FROM BRINGING ANYTHING TO
NON-EXISTENCE. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CREATING AND FORMING.
9. But the goodness of God does not permit the accomplishment of this
end, but so orders all things that fall away that they may exist where
their existence is most suitable, till in the order of their movements they
return to that from which they fell away. (1) Thus, when rational souls
fall away from God, although they possess the greatest amount of free-will,
He ranks them in the lower grades of creation. where their proper place is.
So they suffer misery by the divine judgment, while they are ranked
suitably to their deserts. Hence we see the excellence of that saying which
you are always inveighing against so strongly, "I make good things, and
create evil things." (1) To create is to form and arrange. So in some
copies it is written, "I make good things and form evil things." To make is
used of things previously not in existence; but to form is to arrange what
had some kind of existence, so as to improve and enlarge it. Such are the
things which God arranges when He says, "I form evil things," meaning
things which are falling off, and so tending to non-existence,--not things
which have reached that to which they tend. For it has been said, Nothing
is allowed in the providence of God to go the length of non-existence.(2)
10. These things might be discussed more fully and at greater length,
but enough has been said for our purpose in dealing with you. We have only
to show you the gate which you despair of finding, and make the
uninstructed despair of it too. You can be made to enter only by good-will,
on which the divine mercy bestows peace, as the song in the Gospel says,
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good-will." (3)
It is enough, I say, to have shown you that there is no way of solving the
religious question of good and evil, unless whatever is, as far as it is,
is from God; while as far as it falls away from being it is not of God, and
yet is always ordered by Divine Providence in agreement with the whole
system. If you do not yet see this, I know nothing else that I can do but
to discuss the things already said with greater particularity. For nothing
save piety and purity can lead the mind to greater things.
CHAP. 8.--EVIL IS NOT A SUBSTANCE, BUT A DISAGREEMENT HOSTILE TO SUBSTANCE.
11. For what other answer will you give to the question, What is evil?
but either that it is against nature, or that it is hurtful, or that it is
corruption, or something similar? But I have shown that in these replies
you make shipwreck of your cause, unless, indeed, you will answer in the
childish way in which you generally speak to children, that evil is fire,
poison, a wild beast, and so on. For one of the leaders of this heresy,
whose instructions we attended with great familiarity land frequency, used
to say with reference to a person who held that evil was not a sub stance,
"I should like to put a scorpion in the man's hand, and see whether he
would not withdraw his hand; and in so doing he would get a proof, not in
words but in the thing itself, that evil is a substance, for he would not
deny that the animal is a substance." He said this not in the presence of
the person, but to us, when we repeated to him the remark which had
troubled us, giving, as I said, a childish answer to children. For who with
the least tincture of learning or science does not see that these things
hurt by disagreement with the bodily temperament, while at other times they
agree with it, so as not only not to hurt, but to produce the best
effects? For if this poison were evil in itself, the scorpion itself would
suffer first and most. In fact, if the poison were quite taken from the
animal, it would die. So for its body it is evil to lose what it is evil
for our body to receive; and it is good for it to have what it is good for
us to want. Is the same thing then both good and evil? By no means; but
evil is what is against nature, for this is evil both to the animal and to
us. This evil is the disagreement, which certainly is not a substance, but
hostile to substance. Whence then is it? See what it leads to, and you will
learn, if any inner light lives in you. It leads all that it destroys to
non-existence. Now God is the author of existence; and there is no
existence which, as far as it is existing, leads to non-existence: Thus we
learn whence disagreement is not; as to whence it is, nothing can be said.
12. We read in history of a female criminal in Athens, who succeeded in
drinking the quantity of poison allotted as a fatal draught for the
condemned with little or no injury to her health, by taking it at
intervals. So being condemned, she took the poison in the prescribed
quantity like the rest, but rendered it powerless by accustoming herself to
it, and did not die like the rest. And as this excited great wonder, she
was banished. If poison is an evil, are we to think that she made it to be
no evil to her? What could be more absurd than this? But because
disagreement is an evil, what she did was to make the poisonous matter
agree with her own body by a process of habituation. For how could she by
any amount of cunning have brought it about that disagreement should not
hurt her? Why so? Because what is truly and properly an evil is hurtful
both always and to all. Oil is beneficial to our bodies, but very much the
opposite to many six-footed animals. And is not hellebore sometimes food,
sometimes medicine, and sometimes poison. Does not every one maintain that
salt taken in excess is poisonous? And yet the benefits to the body from
salt are innumerable and most important. Sea-water is injurious when drunk
by land animals, but it is most suitable and useful to many who bathe their
bodies in it and to fish it is useful and wholesome in both ways. Bread
nourishes man, but kills hawks. And does not mud itself, which is offensive
and noxious when swallowed or smelt, serve as cooling to the touch in hot
weather, and as a cure for wounds from fire? What can be nastier than dung,
or more worthless than ashes? And yet they are of such use to the fields,
that the Romans thought divine honors due to the discoverer, Stercutio,
from whose name the word for dung [stercus] is derived.
13. But why enumerate details which are countless? We need not go
farther than the four elements themselves, which, as every one knows, are
beneficial when there is agreement, and bitterly opposed to nature when
there is disagreement in the objects acted upon. We who live in air die
under earth or under water, while innumerable animals creep alive in sand
or loose earth, and fish die in our air. Fire consumes our bodies, but,
when suitably applied, it both restores from cold, and expels diseases
without number. The sun to which you bow the knee, and than which, indeed,
there is no fairer object among visible things, strengthens the eyes of
eagles, but hurts and dims our eyes when we gaze on it; and yet we too can
accustom ourselves to look upon it without injury. Will you, then, allow
the sun to be compared to the poison which the Athenian woman made harmless
by habituating herself to it? Reflect for once, and consider that if a
substance is an evil because it hurts some one, the light which you worship
cannot be acquitted of this charge. See the preferableness of making evil
in general to consist in this disagreement, from which the sun's ray
produces dimness in the eyes, though nothing is pleasanter to the eyes than
light. (1)
CHAP. 9.--THE MANICHAEAN FICTIONS ABOUT THINGS GOOD AND EVIL ARE NOT
CONSISTENT WITH THEMSELVES.
14. I have said these things to make you cease, if that is possible,
giving the name of evil to a region boundless in depth and length; to a
mind wandering through the region; to the five caverns of the elements,--
one full of darkness, another of waters, another of winds, another of
fire, another of smoke; to the animals born in each of these elements,--
serpents in the darkness, swimming creatures in the waters, flying
creatures in the winds, quadrupeds in the fire, bipeds in the smoke. For
these things, as you describe them, cannot be called evil; for all such
things, as far as they exist, must have their existence from the most high
God, for as far as they exist they are good. If pain and weakness is an
evil, the animals you speak of were of such physical strength that their
abortive offspring, after, as your sect believes, the world was formed of
them, fell from heaven to earth, according to you, and could not die. If
blindness is an evil, they could see; if deafness, they could hear. If to
be nearly or altogether dumb is an evil, their speech was so clear and
intelligible, that, as you assert, they decided to make war against God in
compliance with an address delivered in their assembly. If sterility is an
evil, they were prolific in children. If exile is an evil, they were in
their own country, and occupied their own territories. If servitude is an
evil, some of them were rulers. If death is an evil, they were alive, and
the life was such that, by your statement, even after God was victorious,
it was impossible for the mind ever to die.
15. Can you tell me how it is that in the chief evil so many good
things are to be found, the opposites of the evils above mentioned? and if
these are not evils, can any substance be an evil, as far as it is a
substance? If weakness is not an evil, can a weak body be an evil? If
blindness is not an evil, can darkness be an evil? If deafness is not an
evil, can a deaf man be an evil? If dumbness is not an evil, can a fish be
an evil? If sterility is not an evil, how can we call a barren animal an
evil? If exile is not an evil, how can we give that name to an animal in
exile, or to an animal sending some one into exile? If servitude is not an
evil, in what sense is a subject animal an evil, or one enforcing
subjection? If death is not an evil, in what sense is a mortal animal an
evil, or one causing death? Or if these are evils, must we not give the
name of good things to bodily strength, sight, hearing, persuasive speech,
fertility, native land, liberty, life, all which you hold to exist in that
kingdom of evil, and yet venture to call it the perfection of evil?
16. Once more, if, as has never been denied, unsuitableness is an evil,
what can be more suitable than those elements to their respective animals,-
-the darkness to serpents, the waters to swimming creatures, the winds to
flying creatures, the fire to voracious animals, the smoke to soaring
animals? Such is the harmony which you describe as existing in the race of
strife; such the order in the seat of confusion. If what is hurtful is an
evil, I do not repeat the strong objection already stated, that no hurt can
be suffered where no good exists; but if that is not so clear, one thing at
least is easily seen and understood as following from the acknowledged
truth, that what is hurtful is an evil. The smoke in that region did not
hurt bipeds: it produced them, and nourished and sustained them without
injury in their birth, their growth, and their rule. But now, when the evil
has some good mixed with it, the smoke has become more hurtful, so that we,
who certainly are bipeds, instead of being sustained by it, are blinded,
and suffocated, and killed by it. Could the mixture of good have given such
destructiveness to evil elements? Could there be such confusion in the
divine government?
17. In the other cases, at least, how is it that we find that congruity
which misled your author and induced him to fabricate falsehoods? Why does
darkness agree with serpents, and waters with swimming creatures, and winds
with flying creatures, though the fire burns up quadrupeds, and smoke
chokes us? Then, again, have not serpents very sharp sight, and do they not
love the sunshine, and abound most where the calmness of the air prevents
the clouds from gathering much or often? How very absurd that the natives
and lovers of darkness should live most comfortably and agreeably where the
clearest light is enjoyed! Or if you say that it is the heat rather than
the light that they enjoy, it would be more reasonable to assign to fire
serpents, which are naturally of rapid motion, than the slow-going asp. (1)
Besides, all must admit that light is agreeable to the eyes of the asp, for
they are compared to an eagle's eyes. But enough of the lower animals. Let
us, I pray, attend to what is true of ourselves without persisting in
error, and so our minds shall be disentangled from silly and mischievous
falsehoods. For is it not intolerable perversity to say that in the race of
darkness, where there was no mixture of light, the biped animals had so
sound and strong, so incredible force of eyesight, that even in their
darkness they could see the perfectly pure light (as you represent it) of
the kingdom of God? for, according to you, even these beings could see this
light, and could gaze at it, and study it, and delight in it, and desire
it; whereas our eyes, after mixture with light, with the chief good, yea,
with God, have become so tender and weak, that we can neither see anything
in the dark, nor bear to look at the sun, but, after looking, lose sight of
what we could see before.
18. The same remarks are applicable if we take corruption to be an
evil, which no one doubts. The smoke did not corrupt that race of animals,
though it corrupts animals now. Not to go over all the particulars, which
would be tedious, and is not necessary, the living creatures of your
imaginary description were so much less liable to corruption than animals
are now, that their abortive and premature offspring, cast headlong from
heaven to earth, both lived and were productive, and could band together
again, having, forsooth, their original vigor, because they were conceived
before good was mixed with the evil; for, after this mixture, the animals
born are, according to you, those which we now see to be very feeble and
easily giving way to corruption. Can any one persist in the belief of error
like this, unless he fails to see these things, or is affected by your
habit and association in such an amazing way as to be proof against all the
force of reasoning?
CHAP. 10.--THREE MORAL SYMBOLS DEVISED BY THE MANICHAEANS FOR NO GOOD.
19. Now that I have shown, as I think, how much darkness and error is
in your opinions about good and evil things in general, let us examine now
those three symbols which you extol so highly, and boast of as excellent
observances. What then are those three symbols? That of the mouth, that of
the hands, and that of the breast. What does this mean? That man, we are
told, should be pure and innocent in mouth, in hands, and in breast. But
what if he sins with eyes, ears, or nose? What if he hurts some one with
his heels, or perhaps kills him? How can he be reckoned criminal when he
has not sinned with mouth, hands, or breast? But, it is replied, by the
mouth we are to understand all the organs of sense in the head; by the
hands, all bodily actions; by the breast, all lustful tendencies. To what,
then, do you assign blasphemies? To the mouth or to the hand? For blasphemy
is an action of the tongue. And if all actions are to be classed under one
head, why should you join together the actions of the hands and the feet,
and not those of the tongue. Do you wish to separate the action of the
tongue, as being for the purpose of expressing something, from actions
which are not for this purpose, so that the symbol of the hands should mean
abstinence from all evil actions which are not for the purpose of
expressing something? But then, what if some one sins by expressing
something with his hands, as is done in writing or in some significant
gesture? This cannot be assigned to the tongue and the mouth, for it is
done by the hands. When you have three symbols of the mouth, the hands, and
the breast, it is quite inadmissible to charge against the mouth sins found
in the hands. And if you assign action in general to the hands, there is no
reason for including under this the action of the feet and not that of the
tongue. Do you see how the desire of novelty, with its attendant error,
lands you in great difficulties? For you find it impossible to include
purification of all sins in these three symbols, which you set forth as a
kind of new classification.
CHAP. 11.--THE VALUE OF THE SYMBOL OF THE MOUTH AMONG THE MANICHAEANS, WHO
ARE FOUND GUILTY OF BLASPHEMING GOD.
20. Classify as you please, omit what you please, we must discuss the
doctrines you insist upon most. You say that the symbol of the mouth
implies refraining from all blasphemy. But blasphemy is speaking evil of
good things. So usually the word blasphemy is applied only to speaking evil
of God; for as regards man there is uncertainty, but God is without
controversy good. If, then, you are proved guilty of saying worse things of
God than any one else says, what becomes of your famous symbol of the
mouth? The evidence is not obscure, but clear and obvious to every
understanding, and irresistible, the more so that no one can remain in
ignorance of it, that God is incorruptible, immutable, liable to no injury,
to no want, to no weakness, to no misery. All this the common sense of
rational beings perceives, and even you assent when you hear it.
21. But when you begin to relate your fables, that God is corruptible,
and mutable, and subject to injury, and exposed to want and weakness, and
not secure from misery, this is what you are blind enough to teach, and
what some are blind enough to believe. And this is not all; for, according
to you, God is not only corruptible, but corrupted; not only changeable,
but changed; not only subject to injury, but injured; not only liable to
want, but in want; not only possibly, but actually weak; not only exposed
to misery, but miserable. You say that the soul is God, or a part of God. I
do not see how it can be part of God without being God. A part of gold is
gold; of silver; of stone; and, to come to greater things, part of earth is
earth, part of water is water, and of air; and if you take part from fire,
you will not deny it to be fire; and part of light can be nothing but
light. Why then should part of God not be God? Has God a jointed body, like
man and the lower animals? For part of man is not man.
22. I will deal with each of these opinions separately. If you view God
as resembling light, you must admit that part of God is God. Hence, when
you make the soul part of God, though you allow it to be corrupted as being
foolish, and changed as having once been wise, and in want as needing
health, and feeble as needing medicine, and miserable as desiring
happiness, all these things you profanely attribute to God. Or if you deny
these things of the mind, it follows that the Spirit is not required to
lead the soul into truth, since it is not in folly; nor is the soul renewed
by true religion, since it does not need renewal; nor is it perfected by
your symbols, since it is already perfect; nor does God give it assistance,
since it does not need it; nor is Christ its physician, since it is in
health; nor does it require the promise of happiness in another life. Way
then is Jesus called the deliverer, according to His own words in the
Gospel, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed?" (1) And
the Apostle Paul says, "Ye have been called to liberty." (2) The soul,
then, which has not attained this liberty is in bondage. Therefore,
according to you, God, since part of God is God, is both corrupted by
folly, and is changed by falling, and is injured by the loss of perfection,
and is in need of help, and is weakened by disease, and bowed down with
misery, and subject to disgraceful bondage.
23. Again, if part of God is not God, still He is not incorrupt when
His part is corrupted, nor unchanged when there is change in any part, nor
uninjured when He is not perfect in every part, nor free from want when He
is busily endeavoring to recover part of Himself, nor quite whole when He
has a weak part, nor perfectly happy when any part is suffering misery, nor
entirely free when any part is under bondage. These are conclusions to
which you are driven, because you say that the soul, which you see to be in
such a calamitous condition, is part of God. If you can succeed in making
your sect abandon these and many similar opinions, then you may speak of
your mouth being free from blasphemies. Better still, leave the sect; for
if you cease to believe and to repeat what Manichaeus has written, you will
be no longer Manichaeans.
24. That God is the supreme good, and that than which nothing can be or
can be conceived better, we must either understand or believe, if we wish
to keep clear of blasphemy. There is a relation of numbers which cannot
possibly be impaired or altered, nor can any nature by any amount of
violence prevent the number which comes after one from being the double of
one. This can in no way be changed; and yet you represent God as
changeable! This relation preserves its integrity inviolable; and you will
not allow God an equality even in this! Let some race of darkness take in
the abstract the number three, consisting of indivisible units, and divide
it into two equal parts, Your mind perceives that no hostility could effect
this. And can that which is unable to injure a numerical relation injure
God? If it could not, what possible necessity could there be for a part of
him to be mixed with evil, and driven into such miseries?
CHAP. 12.--MANICHAEAN SUBTERFUGE.
25. For this gives rise to the question, which used to throw us into
great perplexity even when we were your zealous disciples, nor could we
find any answer,--what the race of darkness would have done to God,
supposing He had refused to fight with it at the cost of such calamity to
part of Himself. For if God would not have suffered any loss by remaining
quiet, we thought it hard that we had been sent to endure so much. Again,
if He would have suffered, His nature cannot have been incorruptible, as it
behoves the nature: of God to be. Sometimes the answer was, that it was not
for the sake of escaping evil or avoiding injury, but that God in His
natural goodness wished to bestow the blessing of order on a disturbed and
disordered nature. This is not what we find in the Manichaean books: there
it is constantly implied and constantly asserted that God guarded against
an invasion of His enemies. But supposing this answer, which was given from
want of a better, to represent the opinion of the Manichaeans, is God, in
their view, vindicated from the charge of cruelty or weakness? For this
goodness of His to the hostile race proved most pernicious to His own
subjects. Besides, if God's nature could not be corrupted nor changed,
neither could any destructive influence corrupt or change us; and the order
to be bestowed on the race of strangers might have been bestowed without
robbing us of it.
26. Since those times, however, another answer has appeared which I
heard recently at Carthage. For one, whom I wish much to see brought out of
this error, when reduced to this same dilemma, ventured to say that the
kingdom had its own limits, which might be invaded by a hostile race,
though God Himself could not be injured. But this is a reply which your
founder would never consent to give; for he would be likely to see that
such an opinion would lead to a still speedier demolition of his heresy.
And in fact any one of average intellect, who hears that in this nature
part is subject to injury and part not, will at once perceive that this
makes not two but three natures,--one violable, a second inviolable, and a
third violating.
CHAP. 13.--ACTIONS TO BE JUDGED OF FROM THEIR MOTIVE, NOT FROM EXTERNALS.
MANICHAEAN ABSTINENCE TO BE TRIED BY THIS PRINCIPLE.
27. Having every day in your mouth these blasphemies which come from
your heart, you ought not to continue holding up the symbol of the mouth as
something wonderful, to ensnare the ignorant. But perhaps you think the
symbol of the mouth excellent and admirable because you do not eat flesh or
drink wine. But what is your end in this? For according as the end we have
in view in our actions, on account of which we do whatever we do, is not
only not culpable but also praiseworthy, so only can our actions merit any
praise. If the end we have regard to in any performance is unlawful and
blameworthy, the performance itself will be unhesitatingly condemned as
improper.
28. We are told of Catiline that he could bear cold, thirst, and
hunger. (1) This the vile miscreant had in common with our apostles. What
then distinguishes the parricide from our apostles but the precisely
opposite end which he followed? He bore these things in order to gratify
his fierce and ungoverned passions; they, on the other hand, in order to
restrain these passions and subdue them to reason. You often say, when you
are told of the great number of Catholic virgins, a she-mule is a virgin.
This, indeed, is said in ignorance of the Catholic system, and is not
applicable. Still, what you mean is that this continence is worthless
unless it leads, on right principles, to an end of high excellence.
Catholic Christians might also compare your abstinence from wine and flesh
to that of cattle and many small birds, as likewise of countless sorts of
worms. But, not to be impertinent like you, I will not make this comparison
prematurely, but will first examine your end in what you do. For I suppose
I may safely take it as agreed on, that in such customs the end is the
thing to look to. Therefore, if your end is to be frugal and to restrain
the appetite which finds gratification in eating and drinking, I assent and
approve. But this is not the case.
29. Suppose, what is quite possible, that there is one so frugal and
sparing in his diet, that, instead of gratifying his appetite or his
palate, he refrains from eating twice in one day, and at supper takes a
little cabbage moistened and seasoned with lard, just enough to keep down
hunger; and quenches his thirst, from regard to his health, with two or
three draughts of pure wine; and this is his regular diet: whereas another
of different habits never takes flesh or wine, but makes an agreeable
repast at two o'clock on rare and foreign vegetables, varied with a number
of courses, and well sprinkled with pepper, and sups in the slime style
towards night; and drinks honey-vinegar, mead, raisin-wine, and the juices
of various fruits, no bad imitation of wine, and even surpassing it in
sweetness; and drinks not for thirst but for pleasure; and makes this
provision for himself daily, and feasts in this sumptuous style, not
because he requires it, but only gratifying his taste;--which of these two
do you regard as living most abstemiously in food and drink? You cannot
surely be so blind as not to put the man of the little lard and wine above
this glutton!
30. This is the true view; but your doctrine sounds very differently.
For one of your elect distinguished by the three symbols may live like the
second person in this description, and though he may be reproved by one or
two of the more sedate, he cannot be condemned as abusing the symbols. But
should he sup with the other person, and moisten his lips with a morsel of
rancid bacon, or refresh them with a drink of spoilt wine, he is pronounced
a transgressor of the symbol, and by the judgment of your founder is
consigned to hell, while you, though wondering, must assent. Will you not
discard these errors? Will you not listen to reason? Will you not offer
some little resistance to the force of habit? Is not such doctrine most
unreasonable? Is it not insanity? Is it not the greatest absurdity that
one, who stuffs and loads his stomach every day to gratify his appetite
with mushrooms, rice, truffles, cake, mead, pepper, and assafoetida, and
who fares thus every day, cannot be convicted of transgressing the three
symbols, that is, the rule of sanctity; whereas another, who seasons his
dish of the commonest herbs with some smoky morsel of meat, and takes only
so much of this as is needed for the refreshment of his body, and drinks
three cups of wine for the sake of keeping in health, should, for
exchanging the former diet for this, be doomed to certain punishment?
CHAP. 14.--THREE GOOD REASONS FOR ABSTAINING FROM CERTAIN KINDS OF FOOD.
31. But, you reply, the apostle says, "It is good, brethren, neither to
eat flesh, nor to drink wine."(1) No one denies that this is good, provided
that it is for the end already mentioned, of which it is said," Make not
provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof;" (2) or for the ends
pointed out by the apostle, namely, either to check the appetite, which is
apt to go to a more wild and uncontrollable excess in these things than in
others, or lest a brother should be offended, or lest the weak should hold
fellowship with an idol. For at the time when the apostle wrote, the flesh
of sacrifices was often sold in the market. And because wine, too, was used
in libations to the gods of the Gentiles, many weaker brethren, accustomed
to purchase such things, preferred to abstain entirely from flesh and wine
rather than run the risk of having fellowship, as they considered it, with
idols, even ignorantly. And, for their sakes, even those who were stronger,
and had faith enough to see the insignificance of these things, knowing
that nothing is unclean except from an evil conscience, and holding by the
saying of the Lord, "Not that which entereth into your mouth defileth you,
but that which cometh out of it," (3) still, lest these weaker brethren
should stumble, were bound to abstain from these things. And this is not a
mere theory, but is clearly taught in the epistles of the apostle himself.
For you are in the habit of quoting only the words, "It is good, brethren,
neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine," without adding what follows, "nor
anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended or is made weak."
These words show the intention of the apostle in giving the admonition.
32. This is evident from the preceding and succeeding context. The
passage is a long one to quote, but, for the sake of those who are indolent
in reading and searching the sacred Scriptures, we must give the whole of
it. "Him that is weak in the faith," says the apostle, "receive ye, but not
to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things:
another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him
that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth, for
God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to
his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, he shall be holden up: for God
is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another; another
esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own
mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it to the Lord. He that eateth,
eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to
the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to
himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the
Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live, therefore,
or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both lived, and died and
rose again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living. But why dost
thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we
shall all stand before the judgment-seat of God. For it is written, As I
live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall
confess to God.(1) So then every one of us shall give account of himself to
God. Let us not, therefore, judge one another any more: but judge this
rather, that no man put a stumbling-block, or occasion to fall, in his
brother's way. I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that there is
nothing common of itself: but to him that esteemeth anything to be common,
to him it is common. But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now
walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ
died. Let not then our good be evil spoken of. For the kingdom of God is
not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost. For he who in this serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved
of men. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and
things whereby one may edify another. For meat destroys not the work of
God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that man who eateth
with offense. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor
anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.
Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he who condemneth
not himself in that thing which he alloweth. And he that distinguishes is
damned if he eats, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of
faith is sin. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the
weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor
for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not Himself." (2)
33. Is it not clear that what the apostle required was, that the
stronger should not eat flesh nor drink wine, because they gave offense to
the weak by not going along with them, and made them think that those who
in faith judged all things to be pure, did homage to idols in not
abstaining from that kind of food and drink? This is also set forth in the
following passage of the Epistle to the Corinthians: "As concerning,
therefore, the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto
idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none
other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in
heaven or in earth, but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are
all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all
things, and we by Him. Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge:
for some, with conscience of the idol unto this hour, eat it as a thing
offered to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. But meat
commendeth us not to God: for neither, if we eat, shall we abound; neither,
if we eat not, shall we suffer want. But take heed, lest by any means this
liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak. For if any
man see one who has knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not
his conscience being weak be emboldened to eat those things which are
offered to idols; and through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish,
for whom Christ died? But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound
their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. Wherefore, if meat make my
brother to offend, I will eat no flesh forever, lest I make my brother to
offend." (3)
34. Again, in another place: "What say I then? that the idol is
anything? or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is anything? But
the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to devils, and not
to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye
cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be
partakers of the Lord's table and of the table of devils. Do we provoke the
Lord to jealousy? are we stronger than He? All things are lawful for me,
but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all
things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man what is another's.
Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for
conscience sake. But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice
unto idols, eat not for his sake that shows it, and for conscience sake:
conscience, I say, not thine own, but another's: for why is my liberty
judged of another man's conscience? For if I be a partaker with
thanksgiving, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks?
Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the
glory of God. Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Greeks,
nor to the Church of God: even as I please all men in all things not
seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many that they may be saved. Be
ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." (1)
35. It is clear, then, I think, for what end we should abstain from
flesh and wine. The end is threefold: to check indulgence, which is mostly
practised in this sort of food, and in this kind of drink goes the length
of intoxication; to protect weakness, on account of the things which are
sacrificed and offered in libation; and, what is most praiseworthy of all,
from love, not to offend the weakness of those more feeble than ourselves,
who abstain from these things. You, again, consider a morsel of meat
unclean; whereas the apostle says that all things are clean, but that it is
evil to him that eateth with offence. And no doubt you are defiled by such
food, simply because you think it unclean. For the apostle says, "I know,
and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing common of itself:
but to him that esteemeth anything common, to him it is common." And every
one can see that by common he means unclean and defiled. But it is folly to
discuss passages of Scripture with you; for you both mislead people by
promising to prove your doctrines, and those books which possess authority
to demand our homage you affirm to be corrupted by spurious interpolations.
Prove then to me your doctrine that flesh defiles the eater, when it is
taken without offending any one, without any weak notions. and without any
excess.(2)
CHAP. 15.--WHY THE MANICHAEANS PROHIBIT THE USE OF FLESH.
36. It is worth while to take note of the whole reason for their
superstitious abstinence, which is given as follows:--Since, we are told,
the member of God has been mixed with the substance of evil, to repress it
and to keep it from excessive ferocity,--for that is what you say,--the
world is made up of both natures, of good and evil, mixed together. But
this part of God is daily being set free in all parts of the world, and
restored to its own domain. But in its passage upwards as vapor from earth
to heaven, it enters plants, because their roots are fixed in the earth,
and so gives fertility and strength to all herbs and shrubs. From these
animals get their food, and, where there is sexual intercourse, fetter in
the flesh the member of God, and, turning it from its proper course, they
come in the way and entangle it in errors and troubles. So then, if food
consisting of vegetables and fruits comes to the saints, that is, to the
Manichaeans by means of their chastity, and prayers, and psalms, whatever
in it is excellent and divine is purified, and so is entirely perfected, in
order to restoration, free from all hindrance, to its own domain. Hence you
forbid people to give bread or vegetables, or even water, which would cost
nobody anything, to a beggar, if he is not a Manichaean, lest he should
defile the member of God by his sins, and obstruct its return.
37. Flesh, you say, is made up of pollution itself. For, according to
you, some portion of that divine part escapes in the eating of vegetables
and fruits: it escapes while they undergo the infliction of rubbing,
grinding, or cooking, as also of biting or chewing. It escapes, too, in all
motions of animals, in the carriage of burdens, in exercise, in toil, or in
any sort of action. It escapes, too, in our rest, when digestion is going
on in the body by means of internal heat. And as the divine nature escapes
in all these ways, some very unclean dregs remain, from which, in sexual
intercourse, flesh is formed. These dregs, however, fly off, in the motions
above mentioned, along with what is good in the soul; for though it is
mostly, it is not entirely good. So, when the soul has left the flesh, the
dregs are utterly filthy, and the soul of those who eat flesh is defiled.
CHAP. 16.--DISCLOSURE OF THE MONSTROUS TENETS OF THE MANICHAEANS.
38. O the obscurity of the nature of things How hard to expose
falsehood! Who that hears these things, if he is one who has not learned
the causes of things, and who, not yet illuminated by any ray of truth, is
deceived by material images, would not think them true, precisely because
the things spoken of are invisible, and are presented to the mind under the
form of visible things, and can be eloquently expressed? Men of this
description exist in numbers and in droves, who are kept from being led
away into these errors more by a fear grounded on religious feeling than by
reason. I will therefore endeavor, as God may please to enable me, so to
refute these errors, as that their falsehood and absurdity will be manifest
not only in the judgment of the wise, who reject them on hearing them, but
also to the intelligence of the multitude.
39. Tell me then, first, where you get the doctrine that part of God,
as you call it, exists in corn, beans, cabbage, and flowers and fruits.
From the beauty of the color, say they, and the sweetness of the taste;
this is evident; and as these are not found in rotten substances, we learn
that their good has been taken from them. Are they not ashamed to attribute
the finding of God to the nose and the palate? But I pass from this. For I
will speak, using words in their proper sense; and, as the saying is, this
is not so easy in speaking to you. Let us see rather what sort of mind is
required to understand this; how, if the presence of good in bodies is
shown by their color, the dung of animals, the refuse of flesh itself, has
all kinds of bright colors, sometimes white, often golden; and so on,
though these are what you take in fruits and flowers as proofs of the
presence and indwelling of God. Why is it that in a rose you hold the red
color to be an indication of an abundance of good, while the same color in
blood you condemn? Why do you regard with pleasure in a violet the same
color which you turn away from in cases of cholera, or of people with
jaundice, or in the excrement of infants? Why do you believe the light,
shining appearance of oil to be a sign of a plentiful admixture of good,
which you readily set about purifying by taking the oil into your throats
and stomachs, while you are afraid to touch your lips with a drop of fat,
though it has the same shining appearance as oil? Why do you look upon a
yellow melon as part of the treasures of God, and not rancid bacon fat or
the yolk of an egg? Why do you think that whiteness in a lettuce proclaims
God, and not in milk? So much for colors, as regards which (to mention
nothing else) you cannot compare any flower-clad meadow with the wings and
feathers of a single peacock, though these are of flesh and of fleshly
origin.
40. Again, if this good is discovered also by smell, perfumes of
excellent smell are made from the flesh of some animals. And the smell of
food, when cooked along with flesh of delicate flavor, is better than if
cooked without it. Once more, if you think that the things that have a
better smell than others are therefore cleaner, there is a kind of mud
which you ought to take to your meals instead of water from the cistern;
for dry earth moistened with rain has an odor most agreeable to the sense,
and this sort of mud has a better smell than rain-water taken by itself.
But if we must have the authority of taste to J prove the presence in any
object of part of God, he must dwell in dates and honey more than in pork,
but more in pork than in beans. I grant that He dwells more in a fig than
in a liver; but then you must allow that He is more in liver than in beet.
And, on this principle, must you not confess that some plants, which none
of you can doubt to be cleaner than flesh, receive God from this very
flesh, if we are to think of God as mixed with the flavor? For both
cabbages taste better when cooked along with flesh; and, while we cannot
relish the plants on which cattle feed, when these are turned into milk we
think them improved in color, and find them very agreeable to the taste.
41. Or must we think that good is to be found in greater quantity where
the three good qualities--a good color, and smell, and taste--are found
together? Then you must not admire and praise flowers so much, as yon
cannot admit them to be tried at the tribunal of the palate. At least you
must not prefer purslain to flesh, since flesh when cooked is superior in
color, smell, and taste. A young pig roasted (for your ideas on this
subject force us to discuss good and evil with you as if you were cooks and
confectioners, instead of men of reading or literary taste) is bright in
color, and agreeable in smell, and pleasant in taste. Here is a perfect
evidence of the presence of the divine substance. You are invited by this
threefold testimony, and called on to purify this substance by your
sanctity. Make the attack. Why do you hold back? What objection have you to
make. In color alone the excrement of an infant surpasses lentils; in smell
alone a roast morsel surpasses a soft green fig; in taste alone a kid when
slaughtered surpasses the plant which it fed on when alive: and we have
found a kind of flesh in flavor of which all three give evidence. What more
do you require? What reply will you make? Why should eating meat make you
unclean, if using such monstrosities in discussion does not? And, above
all, the rays of the sun, which you surely think more of than all animal or
vegetable food, have no smell or taste, and are remarkable among other
substances only by their eminently bright color; which is a loud call to
you, and an obligation, in spite of yourselves, to place nothing higher
than a bright color among the evidences of an admixture of good.
42. Thus you are forced into this difficulty, that you must acknowledge
the part of God as dwelling more in blood, and in the filthy but bright-
colored animal refuse which is thrown out in the streets, than in the pale
leaves of the olive. If you reply, as you actually do, that olive leaves
when burnt give out a flame, which proves the presence of light, while
flesh when burnt does not, what will you say of oil, which lights nearly
all the lamps in Italy? What of cow dung (which surely is more unclean than
the flesh), which peasants use when dry as fuel, so that the fire is always
at hand, and the liberation of the smoke is always going on? And if
brightness and lustre prove a greater presence of the divine part, why do
you yourselves not purify it, why not appropriate it, why not liberate it?
For it is found chiefly in flowers, not to speak of blood and countless
things almost the same as blood in flesh or coming from it, and yet you
cannot feed on flowers. And even if you were to eat flesh, you would
certainly not take with your gruel the scales of fish, or some worms and
flies, though these all shine with a light of their own in the dark.
43. What then remains, but that you should cease saying that you have
in your eyes, nose, and palate sufficient means of testing the presence of
the divine part in material objects? And, without these means, how can you
tell not only that there is a greater part of God in plants than in flesh,
but that there is any part in plants at all? Are you led to think this by
their beauty--not the beauty of agreeable color, but that of agreement of
parts? An excellent reason, in my opinion. For you will never be so bold as
to compare twisted pieces of wood with the bodies of animals, which are
formed of members answering to one another. But if you choose the testimony
of the senses, as those must do who cannot see with their mind the full
force of existence, how do you prove that the substance of good escapes
from bodies in course of time, and by some kind of attrition, but because
God has gone out of it, according to your view, and has left one place for
another? The whole is absurd. But, as far as I can judge, there are no
marks or appearances to give rise to this opinion. For many things plucked
from trees, or pulled out of the ground, are the better of some interval of
time before we use them for food, as leeks and endive, lettuce, grapes,
apples, figs, and some pears; and there are many other things which get a
better color when they are not used immediately after being plucked,
besides being more wholesome for the body, and having a finer flavor to the
palate. But these things should not possess all these excellent and
agreeable qualities, if, as you say, they become more destitute of good the
longer they are kept after separation from their mother earth. Animal food
itself is better and more fit for use the day after the animal is killed;
but this should not be, if, as you hold, it possessed more good immediately
after the slaughter than next day, when more of the divine substance had
escaped.
44. Who does not know that wine becomes purer and better by age? Nor is
it, as you think, more tempting to the destruction of the senses, but more
useful for invigorating the body,--only let there be moderation, which
ought to control everything. The senses are sooner destroyed by new wine.
When the must has been only a short time in the vat, and has begun to
ferment, it makes those who look down into it fall headlong, affecting
their brain, so that without assistance they would perish. And as regards
health, every one knows that bodies are swollen up and injuriously
distended by new wine? Has it these bad properties because there is more
good in it? Are they not found in wine when old because a good deal of the
divine substance has gone? An absurd thing to say, especially for you, who
prove the divine presence by the pleasing effect produced on your eyes,
nose, and palate! And what a contradiction it is to make wine the poison of
the princes of darkness, and yet to eat grapes! Has it more of the poison
when in the cup than when in the cluster? Or if the evil remains unmixed
after the good is gone, and that by the process of time, how is it that the
same grapes, when hung up for awhile, become milder, sweeter, and more
wholesome? or how does the wine itself, as already mentioned, become purer
and brighter when the light has gone, and more wholesome by the loss of the
beneficial substance?
45. What are we to say of wood and leaves, which in course of time
become dry, but cannot be the worse on that account in your estimation? For
while they lose that which produces smoke, they retain that from which a
bright flame arises; and, to judge by the clearness, which you think so
much of, there is more good in the dry than in the green. Hence you must
either deny that there is more of God in the pure light than in the smoky
one, which will upset all your evidences; or you must allow it to be
possible that, when plants are plucked up, or branches plucked off, and
kept for a time, more of the nature of evil may escape from them than of
the nature of good. And, on the strength of this, we shall hold that more
evil may go off from plucked fruits; and so more good may remain in animal
food. So much on the subject of time.
46. As for motion, and tossing, and rubbing, if these give the divine
nature the opportunity of escaping from these substances, many things of
the same kind are against you, which are improved by motion. In some grains
the juice resembles wine, and is excellent when moved about. Indeed, as
must not be overlooked, this kind of drink produces intoxication rapidly;
and yet you never called the juice of grain the poison of the princes of
darkness. There is a preparation of water, thickened with a little meal,
which is the better of being shaken, and, strange to say, is lighter in
color when the light is gone. The pastry cook stirs honey for a long time
to give it this light color, and to make its sweetness milder and less
unwholesome: you must explain how this can come from the loss of good.
Again, if you prefer to test the presence of God by the agreeable effects
on the hearing, and not sight, or smell, or taste, harps get their strings
and pipes their bones from animals; and these become musical by being
dried, and rubbed, and twisted. So the pleasures of music, which you hold
to have come from the divine kingdom, are obtained from the refuse of dead
animals, and that, too, when they are dried by time, and lessened by
rubbing, and stretched by twisting. Such rough treatment, according to you,
drives the divine substance from living objects; even cooking them, you
say, does this. Why then are boiled thistles not unwholesome? Is it because
God, or part of God, leaves them when they are cooked?
47. Why mention all the particulars, when it is difficult to enumerate
them? Nor is it necessary; for every one knows how many things are sweeter
and more wholesome when cooked. This ought not to be, if, as you suppose,
things lose the good by being thus moved about. I do not suppose that you
will find any proof from your bodily senses that flesh is unclean, and
defiles the souls of those who eat it, because fruits, when plucked and
shaken about in various ways, become flesh; especially as you hold that
vinegar, in its age and fermentation, is cleaner than wine, and the mead
you drink is nothing else than cooked wine, which ought to be more impure
than wine, if material things lose the divine members by being moved about
and cooked. But if not, you have no reason to think that fruits, when
plucked, kept, handled, cooked, and digested, are forsaken by the good, and
therefore supply most unclean matter for the formation of bodies.
48. But if it is not from their color and appearance, and smell and
taste, that you think the good to be in these things, what else can you
bring forward? Do you prove it from the strength and vigor which those
things seem to lose when they are separated from the earth and put to use?
If this is your reason (though its erroneousness is seen at once, from the
fact that the strength of some things is increased after their separation
from the earth, as in the case already mentioned of wine, which becomes
stronger from age),--if the strength, then, is your reason, it would follow
that the part of God is to be found in no food more abundantly than in
flesh. For athletes, who especially require vigor and energy, are not in
the habit of feeding on cabbage and fruit without animal food.
49. Is your reason for thinking the bodies of trees better than our
bodies, that flesh is nourished by trees and not trees by flesh. You forget
the obvious fact that plants, when manured with dung, become richer and
more fertile and crops heavier, though you think it your gravest charge
against flesh that it is the abode of dung. This then gives nourishment to
things you consider clean, though it is, according to you, the most unclean
part of what you consider unclean. But if you dislike flesh because it
springs from sexual intercourse, you should be pleased with the flesh of
worms, which are bred in such numbers, and of such a size, in fruits, in
wood, and in the earth itself, without any sexual intercourse. But there is
some insincerity in this. For if you were displeased with flesh because it
is formed from the cohabitation of father and mother, you would not say
that those princes of darkness were born from the fruits of their own
trees; for no doubt you think worse of these princes than of flesh, which
you refuse to eat.
50. Your idea that all the souls of animals come from the food of their
parents, from which confinement you pretend to liberate the divine
substance which is held bound in your viands, is quite inconsistent with
your abstinence from flesh, and makes it a pressing duty for you to eat
animal food. For if sours are bound in the body by those who eat animal
food, why do you not secure their liberation by being beforehand in eating
the food? You reply, it is not from the animal food that the good part
comes which those people bring into bondage, but from the vegetables which
they take with their meat. What will you say then of the souls of lions,
who feed only on flesh? They drink, is the reply, and so the soul is drawn
in from the water and confined in flesh. But what of birds without number?
What of eagles, which eat only flesh, and need no drink? Here you are at a
loss, and can find no answer. For if the soul comes from food, and there
are animals which neither drink anything nor have any food but flesh, and
yet bring forth young, there must be some soul in flesh; and you are bound
to try your plan of purifying it by eating the flesh. Or will you say that
a pig has a soul of light, because it eats vegetables, and drinks water;
and that the eagle, because it eats only flesh, has a soul of darkness,
though it is so fond of the sun?(1)
51. What a confusion of ideas! What amazing fatuity! All this you would
have escaped, if you had rejected idle fictions, and had followed what
truth sanctions in abstinence from food, which would have taught you that
sumptuous eating is to be avoided, not to escape pollution, as there is
nothing of the kind, but to subdue the sensual appetite. For should any
one, from inattention to the nature of things, and the properties of the
soul and body, allow that the soul is polluted by animal food, you will
admit that it is much much more defiled by sensuality. Is it reasonable,
then, or rather, is it not most unreasonable, to expel from the number of
the elect a man who, perhaps for his health's sake, takes some animal food
without sensual appetite; while, if a man eagerly devours peppered
truffles, you can only reprove him for excess, but cannot condemn him as
abusing your symbol? So one who has been induced, not by sensuality, but
for health, to eat part of a fowl, cannot remain among your elect; though
one may remain who has yielded voluntarily to an excessive appetite for
comfits and cakes without animal matter. You retain the man plunged in the
defilements of sensuality, and dismiss the man polluted, as you think, by
the mere food; though you allow that the defilement of sensuality is far
greater than that of meat. You keep hold of one who gloats with delight
over highly-seasoned vegetables. unable to keep possession of himself;
while you shut out one who, to satisfy hunger, takes whatever comes, if
suitable for nourishment, ready either to use the food, or to let it go.
Admirable customs! Excellent morals! Notable temperance!
52. Again, the notion that it is unlawful for any one but the elect to
touch as food what is brought to your meals for what you call purification,
leads to shameful and sometimes to criminal practices. For sometimes so
much is brought that it cannot easily be eaten up by a few; and as it is
considered sacrilege to give what is left to others, or, at least, to throw
it away, you are obliged to eat to excess, from the desire to purify, as
you call it, all that is given. Then, when you are full almost to bursting,
you cruelly use force in making the boys of your sect eat the rest. So it
was charged against some one at Rome that he killed some poor children, by
compelling them to eat for this superstitious reason. This I should not
believe, did I not know how sinful you consider it to give this food to
those who are not elect, or, at any rate, to throw it away. So the only way
is to eat it; and this leads every day to gluttony, and may sometimes lead
to murder.
53. For the same reason you forbid giving bread to beggars. By way of
showing compassion, or rather of avoiding reproach, you advise to give
money. The cruelty of this is equalled by its stupidity. For suppose a
place where food cannot be purchased: the beggar will die of starvation,
while you, in your wisdom and benevolence, have more mercy on a cucumber
than on a human being This is in truth (for how could it be better
designated) pretended compassion, and real cruelty. Then observe the
stupidity. What if the beggar buys bread for himself with the money you
give him? Will the divine part, as you call it, not suffer the same in him
when he buys the food as it would have suffered if he had taken it as a
gift from you? So this sinful beggar plunges in corruption part of God
eager to escape, and is aided in this crime by your money! But you in your
great sagacity think it enough that you do not give to one about to commit
murder a man to kill, though you knowingly give him money to procure
somebody to be killed. Can any madness go beyond this? The result is, that
either the man dies if he cannot get food for his money, or the food itself
dies if he gets it. The one is true murder; the other what you call murder:
though in both cases you incur the guilt of real murder. Again, there is
the greatest folly and absurdity in allowing your followers to eat animal
food, while you forbid them to kill animals. If this food does not defile,
take it yourselves. If it defiles, what can be more unreasonable than to
think it more sinful to separate the soul of a pig from its body than to
defile the soul of a man with the pig's flesh.
CHAP. 17.--DESCRIPTION OF THE SYMBOL OF THE HANDS AMONG THE MANICHAEANS.
54. We must now notice and discuss the symbol of the hands. And, in the
first place, your abstaining from the slaughter of animals and from
injuring plants is shown by Christ to be mere superstition; for, on the
ground that there is no community of rights between us and brutes and
trees, He both sent-the devils into an herd of swine,(1) and withered by
His curse a tree in which He had found no fruit(2) The swine assuredly had
not sinned, nor had the tree. We are not so insane as to think that a tree
is fruitful or barren by its own choice. Nor is it any reply to say that
our Lord wished in these actions to teach some other truths; for every one
knows that. But assuredly the Son of God would not commit murder to
illustrate truth,if you call the destruction of a tree or of an animal
murder. The signs which Christ wrought in the case of men, with whom we
certainly have a community of rights, were in healing, not in killing them.
And it would have been the same in the case of beasts and trees, if we had
that community with them which you imagine.
55. I think it right to refer here to the authority of Scripture,
because we cannot here enter on a profound discussion about the soul of
animals, or the kind of life in trees. But as you preserve the right to
call the Scriptures corrupted, in case you should find them too strongly
opposed to you,--although you have never affirmed the passages about the
tree and the herd of swine to be spurious,--still, lest some day you should
wish to say this of them too, when you find how much they are against you,
I will adhere to my plan, and will ask you, who are so liberal in your
promises of evidence and truth, to tell me first what harm is done to a
tree, I say not by plucking a leaf or an apple,--for which, however, one of
you would be condemned at once as having abused the symbol, if he did it
intentionally, and not accidentally,--but if you tear it up by the root.
For the soul in trees, which, according to you, is a rational soul, is, in
your theory, freed from bondage when the tree is cut down,--a bondage, too,
where it suffered great misery and got no profit. For it is well known that
you, in the words of your founder, threaten as a great, though not the
greatest punishment, the change from a man to a tree; and it is not
probable that the soul in a tree can grow in wisdom as it does in a man.
There is the best reason for not killing a man, in case you should kill one
whose wisdom or virtue might be of use to many, or one who might have
attained to wisdom, whether by the advice of another without himself, or by
divine illumination in his own mind. And the more wisdom the soul has when
it leaves the body, the more profitable is its departure, as we know both
from well-grounded reasoning and from wide-spread belief. Thus to cut down
a tree is to set free the soul from a body in which it makes no progress in
wisdom. You--the holy men, I mean--ought to be mainly occupied in cutting
down trees, and in leading the souls thus emancipated to better things by
prayers and psalms. Or can this be done only with the souls which you take
into your belly, instead of aiding them by your understanding?
56. And you cannot escape the admission that the souls in trees make no
progress in wisdom while they are there, when you are asked why no apostle
was sent to teach trees as well as men, or why the apostle sent to men did
not preach the truth to trees also. Your reply must be, that the souls
while in such bodies cannot understand the divine precepts. But this reply
lands you in great difficulties; for you declare that these souls can hear
your voices and understand what you say, and see bodies and their motions,
and even discern thoughts. If this is true, why could they learn nothing
from the apostle of light? Why could they not learn even much better than
we, since they can see into the mind? Your master, who, as you say, has.
difficulty in teaching you by speech, might have taught these souls by
thought; for they could see his ideas in his mind before he expressed them.
But if this is untrue, consider into what errors you have fallen.
57. As for your not plucking fruits or pulling up vegetables
yourselves, while you get your followers to pluck and pull and bring them
to you, that you may confer benefits not only on those who bring the food
but on the food which is brought, what thoughtful person can bear to hear
this? For, first, it matters not whether you commit a crime yourself, or
wish another to commit it for you. You deny that you wish this! How then
can relief be given to the divine part contained in lettuce and leeks,
unless some one pull them and bring them to the saints to be purified. And
again, if you were passing through a field where the right of friendship
permitted you to pluck anything you wished, what would you do if you saw a
crow on the point of eating a fig? Does not, according to your ideas, the
fig itself seem to address you and to beg of you piteously to pluck it
yourself and give it burial in a holy belly, where it may be purified and
restored, rather than that the crow should swallow it and make it part of
his cursed body, and then hand it over to bondage and torture in other
forms? If this is true, how cruel you are! If not, how silly! What can be
more contrary to your opinions than to break the symbol? What can be more
unkind to the member of God than to keep it?
58. This supposes the truth of your false and vain ideas. But you can
be shown guilty of plain and positive cruelty flowing from the same error.
For were any one lying on the road, his body wasted with disease, weary
with journeying, and half-dead from his sufferings, and able only to utter
some broken words, and if eating a pear would do him good as an astringent,
and were he to beg you to help him as you passed by, and were he to implore
you to bring the fruit from a neighboring tree, with no divine or human
prohibition to prevent your doing so, while the man is sure to die for the
want of it, you, a Christian man and a saint, will rather pass on and
abandon a man thus suffering and entreating, test the tree should lament
the loss of its fruit, and you should be doomed to the punishment
threatened by Manichaeus for breaking the symbol. Strange customs, and
strange harmlessness!
59. Now, as regards killing animals, and the reasons for your opinion,
much that has been said will apply also to this. For what harm will be done
to the soul of a wolf by killing the wolf, since the wolf, as long as it
lives, will be a wolf, and will not listen to any preacher, or give up, in
the least, shedding the blood of sheep; and, by killing it, the rational
soul, as you think, will be set free from its confinement in the body? But
you make this slaughter unlawful even for your followers; for you think it
worse than that of trees. And in this there is not much fault to be found
with your senses,--that is, your bodily senses. For we see and hear by
their cries that animals die with pain, although man disregards this in a
beast, with which, as not having a rational soul, we have no community of
rights. But as to your senses in the observation of trees, you must be
entirely blind. For not to mention that l there are no movements in the
wood expressive of pain, what is clearer than that a tree is never better
than when it is green and flourishing, gay with flowers, and rich in fruit?
And this comes generally and chiefly from pruning. But if it felt the iron,
as you suppose, it ought to die of wounds so many, so severe, instead of
sprouting at the places, and reviving with such manifest delight.
60. But why do you think it a greater crime to destroy animals than
plants, although you hold that plants have a purer soul than animals? There
is a compensation, we are told, when part of what is taken from the fields
is given to the elect and the saints to be purified. This has already been
refuted; and it has, I think, been proved sufficiently that there is no
reason for saying that more of the good part is found in vegetables than in
flesh. But should any one support himself by selling butcher-meat, and
spend the whole profit of his business in purchasing food for Four elect,
and bring larger supplies for those saints than any peasant or farmer, will
he not plead this compensation as a warrant for his killing animals? But
there is, we are told, some other mysterious reason; for a cunning man can
always find some resource in the secrets of nature when addressing
unlearned people. The story, then, is that the heavenly princes who were
taken from the race of darkness and bound, and have a place assigned them
in this region by the Creator of the world, have animals on the earth
specially belonging to them, each having those coming from his own stock
and class; and they hold the slaughterers of those animals guilty, and do
not allow them to leave the earth, but harass them as much as they can with
pains and torments. What simple man will not be frightened by this, and,
seeing nothing in the darkness shrouding these things, will not think that
the fact is as described? But I will hold to my purpose, with God's help,
to rebut mysterious falsehood by the plainest truth.
61. Tell me, then, it animals on land and in water come in regular
succession by ordinary generation from this race of princes, since the
origin of animal life is traced to the abortive births in that race;--tell
me, I say, whether bees and frogs, and many other creatures not sprung from
sexual intercourse,(1) may be killed with impunity. We are told they
cannot. So it is not on account of their relation to certain princes that
you forbid your followers to kill animals. Or if you make a general
relationship to all bodies, the princes would be equally concerned about
trees, which you do not require your followers to spare. You are brought
back to the weak reply, that the injuries done in the case of plants are
atoned for by the fruits which your followers bring to your church. For
this implies that those who slaughter animals, and sell their flesh in the
market, if they are your followers, and if they bring to you vegetables
bought with their gains, may think nothing of the daily slaughter, and are
cleared of any sin that may be in it by your repasts.
62. But if you say that, in order to expiate the slaughter, the thing
must be given as food, as in the case of fruits and vegetables,--which
cannot be done, because the elect do not eat flesh, and so your followers
must not slaughter animals,--what reply will you give in the case of thorns
and weeds, which farmers destroy in clearing their fields, while they
cannot bring any food to you from them? How can there be pardon for such
destruction, which gives no nourishment to the saints? Perhaps you also put
away any sin committed, for the benefit of the fruits and vegetables, by
eating some of these. What then if the fields are plundered by locusts,
mice, or rats, as we see often happen? Can your rustic follower kill these
with impunity, because he sins for the good of his crops? Here you are at a
loss; for you either allow your followers to kill animals, which your
founder prohibited, or you forbid them to be cultivators, which he made
lawful. Indeed, you sometimes go so far as to say that an usurer is more
harmless than a cultivator,--you feel so much more for melons than for men.
Rather than hurt the melons, you would have a man ruined as a debtor. Is
this desirable and praiseworthy justice, or not rather atrocious and
damnable error? Is this commendable compassion, or not rather detestable
barbarity?
63. What, again, of your not abstaining yourselves from the slaughter
of lice, bugs, and fleas? You think it a sufficient excuse for this to say
that these are the dirt of our bodies. But this is clearly untrue of fleas
and bugs; for every one knows that these animals do not come from our
bodies. Besides, if you abhor sexual intercourse as much as you pretend to
do, you should think those animals all the cleaner which come from our
bodies without any other generation; for although they produce offspring of
their own, they are not produced in ordinary generation from us. Again, if
we must consider as most filthy the production of living bodies, still
worse must be the production of dead bodies. There must be less harm,
therefore, in killing a rat, a snake, or a scorpion, which you constantly
say come from our dead bodies. But to pass over what is less plain and
certain, it is a common opinion regarding bees that they come from the
carcases of oxen; so there is no harm in killing them. Or if this too is
doubted, every one allows that beetles, at least, are bred in the ball of
mud which they make and bury.(1) You ought therefore to consider these
animals, and others that it would be tedious to specify, more unclean than
your lice; and yet you think it sinful to kill them, though it would be
foolish not to kill the lice. Perhaps you hold the lice cheap because they
are small. But if an animal is to be valued by its size, you must prefer a
camel to a man.
64. Here we may use the gradation which often perplexed us when we were
your followers. For if a flea may be killed on account of its small size,
so may the fly which is bred in beans. And if this, so also may one of a
little larger size, for its size at birth is even less. Then again, a bee
may be killed, for its young is no larger than a fly. So on to the young of
a locust, and to a locust; and then to the young of a mouse, and to a
mouse. And, to cut short, it is clear we may come at last to an elephant;
so that one who thinks it no sin to kill a flea, because of its small size,
must allow that it would be no sin in him to kill this huge creature. But I
think enough has been said of these absurdities.
CHAP. 18.--OF THE SYMBOL OF THE BREAST, AND OF THE SHAMEFUL MYSTERIES OF
THE MANICHAEANS.
65. Lastly, there is the symbol of the breast, in which your very
questionable chastity consists. For though you do not forbid sexual
intercourse, you, as the apostle long ago said, forbid marriage in the
proper sense, although this is the only good excuse for such intercourse.
No doubt you will exclaim against this, and will make it a reproach against
us that you highly esteem and approve perfect chastity, but do not forbid
marriage, because your followers--that is, those in the second grade among
you--are allowed to have wives. After you have said this with great noise
and heat, I will quietly ask, Is it not you who hold that begetting
children, by which souls are confined in flesh, is a greater sin than
cohabitation? Is it not you who used to counsel us to observe as much as
possible the time when a woman, after her purification, is most likely to
conceive, and to abstain from cohabitation at that time, lest the soul
should be entangled in flesh? This proves that you approve of having a
wife, not for the procreation of children, but for the gratification of
passion. In marriage, as the marriage law declares, the man and woman come
together for the procreation of children. Therefore whoever makes the
procreation of children a greater sin than copulation, forbids marriage,
and makes the woman not a wife, but a mistress, who for some gifts
presented to her is joined to the man to gratify his passion. Where there
is a wife there must be marriage. But there is no marriage where motherhood
is not in view; therefore neither is there a wife. In this way you forbid
marriage. Nor can you defend yourselves successfully from this charge, long
ago brought against you prophetically by the Holy Spirit.
66. Moreover, when you are so eager in your desire to prevent the soul
from being confined in flesh by conjugal intercourse, and so eager in
asserting that the soul is set free from seed by the food of the saints, do
you not sanction, unhappy beings, the suspicion entertained about you? For
why should it be true regarding corn and beans and lentils and other seeds,
that when you eat them you wish to set free the soul, and not true of the
seeds of animals? For what you say of the flesh of a dead animal, that it
is unclean because there is no soul in it, cannot be said of the seed of
the animal; for you hold that it keeps confined the soul which will appear
in the offspring, and you avow that the soul of Manichaeus himself is thus
confined. And as your followers cannot bring these seeds to you for
purification, who will not suspect that you make this purification secretly
among yourselves, and hide it from your followers, in case they should
leave you? (1) If you do not these things, as it is to be hoped you do not,
still you see how open to suspicion your superstition is, and how
impossible it is to blame men for thinking what your own profession
suggests, when you maintain that you set free souls from bodies and from
senses by eating and drinking. I wish to say no more about this: you see
yourselves what room there is here for denunciation. But as the matter is
one rather to repress than to invite remark, and also as throughout my
discourse my purpose appears of exaggerating nothing, and of keeping to
bare facts and arguments, we shall pass on to other matters.
CHAP. 19.--CRIMES OF THE MANICHAEANS.
67. We see then, now, the nature of your three symbols. These are your
customs. This is the end of your notable precepts, in which there is
nothing sure, nothing steadfast, nothing consistent, nothing
irreproachable, but all doubtful, or rather undoubtedly and entirely false,
all contradictory, abominable, absurd. In a word, evil practices are
detected in your customs so many and so serious, that one wishing to
denounce them all, if he were at all able to enlarge, would require at
least a separate treatise for each. Were you to observe these, and to act
up to your profession, no childishness, or folly, or absurdity would go
beyond yours; and when you praise and teach these things without doing
them, you display craft and deceit and malevolence equal to anything that
can be described or imagined.
68. During nine full years that I attended you with great earnestness
and assiduity, I could not hear of one of your elect who was not found
transgressing these precepts, or at least was not suspected of doing so.
Many were caught at wine and animal food, many at the baths; but this we
only heard by report. Some were proved to have seduced other men's wives,
so that in this case I could not doubt the truth of the charge. But suppose
this, too, a report rather than a fact. I myself saw, and not I only, but
others who have either escaped from that superstition, or will, I hope, yet
escape,--we saw, I say, in a square in Carthage, on a road much frequented,
not one, but more than three of the elect walking behind us, and accosting
some women with such indecent sounds and gestures as to outdo the boldness
and insolence of all ordinary rascals. And it was clear that this was quite
habitual, and that they behaved in this way to one another, for no one was
deterred by the presence of a companion, showing that most of them, if not
all, were affected with this evil tendency. For they did not all come from
one house, but lived in quite different places, and quite accidentally left
together the place where they had met. It was a great shock to us, and we
lodged a complaint about it. But who thought of inflicting punishment,--I
say not by separation from the church, but even by severe rebuke in
proportion to the heinousness of the offence?
69. All the excuse given for the impunity of those men was that, at
that time, when their meetings were forbidden by law, it was feared that
the persons suffering punishment might retaliate by giving information.
What then of their assertion that they will always have persecution in this
world, for which they suppose that they will be thought the more of? for
this is the application they make of the words about the world hating
them.(2) And they will have it that truth must be sought for among them,
because, in the promise of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, it is said that
the world cannot receive Him.(3) This is not the place to discuss this
question. But clearly, if you are always to be persecuted, even to the end
of the world, there will be no end to this laxity, and to the unchecked
spread of all this immorality, from your fear of giving offence to men of
this character.
70. This answer was also given to us, when we reported to the very
highest authorities that a woman had complained to us that in a meeting,
where she was along with other women, not doubting of the sanctity of these
people, some of the elect came in, and when one of them had put out the
lamp, one, whom she could not distinguish, tried to embrace her, and would
have forced her into sin, had she not escaped by crying out. How common
must we conclude the practice to have been which led to the misdeed on this
occasion! And this was done on the night when you keep the feast of vigils.
Forsooth, besides the fear of information being given, no one could bring
the offender before the bishop, as. he had so well guarded against being
recognized. As if all who entered along with him were not implicated in the
crime; for in their indecent merriment they all wished the lamp to be put
out.
71. Then what wide doors were opened for suspicions, when we saw them
full of envy, full of covetousness, full of greed for costly foods,
constantly at strife, easily excited about trifles.! We concluded that they
were not competent to abstain from the things they professed to abstain
from, if they found an opportunity in secret or in the dark. There were two
of sufficiently good character, of active minds, and leaders in their
debates, with whom we had a more particular and intimate acquaintance than
with the rest. One of them was much associated with us, because he was also
engaged in liberal studies; he is said to be now an elder there. These two
were very jealous of one another, and one accused the other--not openly,
but in conversation, as he had opportunity, and in whispers--of having made
a criminal assault on the wife of one of the followers. He again, in
clearing himself to us, brought the same charge against another of the
elect, who lived with this follower as his most trusted friend. He had,
going in suddenly, caught this man with the woman, and his enemy and rival
had advised the woman and her paramour to raise this false report about
him, that he might not be believed if he gave any information. We were much
distressed, and took it greatly to heart, that although there was a doubt
about the assault on the woman, the jealous feeling in those two men, than
whom we found none better in the place, showed itself so keenly, and
inevitably raised a suspicion of other things.(1)
72. Another thing was, that we very often saw in theatres men belonging
to the elect, men of years and, it was supposed, of character, along with a
hoary-headed elder We pass over the youths, whom we used to come upon
quarrelling about the people connected with the stage and the races; from
which we may safely conclude how they would be able to refrain in secret,
when they could not subdue the passion by which they were exposed in the
eyes of their followers, bringing on them disgrace and flight. In the case
of the saint, whose discussions we attended in the street of the fig-
sellers, would his atrocious crime have been discovered if he had been able
to make the dedicated virgin his wife without making her pregnant? The
swelling womb betrayed the secret and unthought-of iniquity. When her
brother, a young man, heard of it from his mother, he felt keenly the
injury, but refrained, from regard to religion, from a public accusation.
He succeeded in getting the man expelled from that church, for such conduct
cannot always be tolerated; and that the crime might not be wholly
unpunished, he arranged with some of his friends to have the man well
beaten and kicked. When he was thus assailed, he cried out that they should
spare him, from regard to the authority of the opinion of Manichaeeus, that
Adam the first hero had sinned, and was a greater saint after his sin.
73. This, in fact, is your notion about Adam and Eve.(2) It is a long
story; but I will touch only on what concerns the present matter. You say
that Adam was produced from his parents, the abortive princes of darkness;
that he had in his soul the most part of light, and very little of the
opposite race. So while he lived a holy life, on account of the prevalence
of good, still the opposite part in him was stirred up, so that he was led
away into conjugal intercourse. Thus he fell and sinned, but afterwards
lived in greater holiness. Now, my complaint is not so much about this
wicked man, who, under the garb of an elect and holy man, brought such
shame and reproach on a family of strangers by his shocking immorality. I
do not charge you with this. Let it be attributed to the abandoned
character of the man, and not to your habits. I blame the man for the
atrocity, and not you. Still there is this in you all that cannot, as far
as I can see, be admitted or tolerated, that while you hold the soul to be
part of God, you still maintain that the mixture of a little evil prevailed
over the superior force and quantity of good. Who that believes this, when
incited by passion, will not find here an excuse, instead of checking and
controlling his passion?
CHAP. 20.--DISGRACEFUL CONDUCT DISCOVERED AT ROME.
74. What more shall I say of your customs? I have mentioned what I
found myself when I was in the city when the things were dome. To go
through all that happened at Rome in my absence would take a long time. I
will, however, give a short account of it; for the matter became so
notorious, that even the absent could not remain in ignorance of it. And
when I was afterwards in Rome, I ascertained the truth of all I had heard,
although the story was told me by an eye-witness whom I knew so well and
esteemed so highly, that I could not feel any doubt about it. One of your
followers, then, quite equal to the elect in their far-famed abstinence,
for he was both liberally educated, and was in the habit of defending your
sect with great zeal, took it very ill that he had cast in his teeth the
vile conduct of the elect, who lived in all kinds of places, and went
hither and thither for lodging of the worst description. He therefore
desired, if possible, to assemble all who were willing to live according to
the precepts into his own house, and to maintain them at his own expense;
for he was above the average in carelessness as to spending money, besides
being above the average in the amount he had to spend. He complained that
Iris efforts were hindered by the remissness of the bishops, whose
assistance he required for success. At last one of your bishops was found,-
-a man, as I know, very rude and unpolished, but somehow, from his very
moroseness, the more inclined to strict observance of morality. The
follower eagerly lays hold of this man as the person he had long wished for
and found at last, and relates his whole plan. He approves and assents, and
agrees to be the first to take up his abode in the house. When this was
done, all the elect who could be at Rome were assembled there. The rule of
life in the epistle of Manichaeus was laid before them. Many thought it
intolerable, and left; not a few felt ashamed, and stayed. They began to
live as they had agreed, and as this high authority enjoined. The follower
all the time was zealously enforcing everything on everybody, though never,
in any case, what he did not undertake himself. Meanwhile quarrels
constantly arose among the elect. They charged one another with crimes, all
which he lamented to hear, and managed to make them unintentionally expose
one another in their altercations. The revelations were vile beyond
description. Thus appeared the true character of those who were unlike the
rest in being willing to bend to the yoke of the precepts. What then is to
be suspected, or rather, concluded, of the others? To come to a close, they
gathered together on one occasion and complained that they could not keep
the regulations. Then came rebellion. The follower stated his case most
concisely, that either all must be kept, or the man who had given such a
sanction to such precepts, which no one could fulfill, must be thought a
great fool. But, as was inevitable, the wild clamor of the mob prevailed
over the opinion of one man. The bishop himself gave way at last, and took
to flight with great disgrace; and he was said to have got in provisions by
stealth, contrary to rule, which were often discovered. He had a supply of
money from his private purse, which he carefully kept concealed.
75. If you say these things are false, you contradict what is too clear
and public. But you may say so if you like. For, as the things are certain,
and easily known by those who wish to know them, those who deny that they
are true show what their habit of telling the truth is. But you have other
replies with which I do not find fault. For you either say that some do
keep your precepts, and that they should not be mixed up with the guilty in
condemning the others; or that the whole inquiry into the character of the
members of your sect is wrong, for the question is of the character of the
profession. Should I grant both of these (although you can neither point
out those faithful observers of the precepts, nor clear your heresy of all
those frivolities and iniquities), still I must insist on knowing why you
heap reproaches on Christians of the Catholic name on seeing the immoral
life of some, while you either have the effrontery to repel inquiry about
your members, or the still greater effrontery not to repel it, wishing it
to be understood that in your scanty membership there are some unknown
individuals who keep the precepts they profess, but that among the
multitudes in the Catholic Church there are none.
Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland, beginning in
1867. (LNPF I/IV, Schaff). The digital version is by The Electronic Bible
Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The electronic form of this document is copyrighted.
Copyright (c) Eternal Word Television Network 1996.
Provided courtesy of:
EWTN On-Line Services
PO Box 3610
Manassas, VA 20108
Voice: 703-791-2576
Fax: 703-791-4250
Data: 703-791-4336
FTP: ftp.ewtn.com
Telnet: ewtn.com
WWW: http://www.ewtn.com.
Email address: sysop@ewtn.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------